Life and Death, Chaos and Order
by BloodRedDemon
Summary: When life held no meaning to Harry Potter, a family of Immortals saw the chance to gain an invaluable ally. Through the use of a mortal, given power to rival that of a god, they saved worlds too many to count. It took its toll, and the scars left on our Protagonist will never truly heal. However, that doesn't mean that they cannot give him a chance of happiness on a world in need.
1. Regicide

**As you can see, this is a Harry Potter/Justice League crossover. The format of Justice League it will primarily follow will be the cartoon from the early 2000s, because that was how I was introduced to the source material. It, in part, is a remake of my old fic The Chaotic Nature of Life. I left this site shortly after beginning that fic, but I still believe it was a sound idea so here's a more fleshed out version. There are differences, primarily in that the episode-to-episode plot will be less consistent/formulaic and instead will depend on how well this (OOC) Harry would fit into the plot. Other than that, the Universe and Characters will be explored, sometimes in original-ish plots, sometimes in comic-born plots. One in particular will stand out to most people as it was quite recently made into an animated film (even it was a tad disappointing given how good most of DC's animated stuff is) but that won't be for a few chapters yet.**

 **There's a decent amount written for this fic, so updates should be relatively frequent for the next month or two. After that, I can't say for sure: I work full time, and am working on original written work on top of that so my free time is somewhat scarce.**

 **And, just as a warning, this will most likely be a Multi-pairing fic. Harry will probably be with a few girls (eventually) at the same time. At some point I intend to post my reasoning for that on my Author's page but, in short, there is a place for Multi Pairings, and that place is here. Authors on this site are not paid for what they do, so why should they have to compromise what they wish to write so long as the story will not (necessarily) suffer for it? I'm writing this (partially) to show my appreciation for the characters in the DC universe, and don't particularly want to choose which of them to pair Harry with. That being said, I fully intend to flesh out these relationships when I get to that part, because I do not want any part of my work to be (for lack of a better word) cheap.**

 **I hope you enjoy this story. I own nothing of either Harry Potter or the DC Universe. Know that Authors' notes of any length, let alone this bulk, will be a rarity.**

The wild eyed ancient man, in a youthful body, wiped the blood from his mouth as the heart raced in his chest. Adrenaline coursed through his system, and he would have to wait for it to leave before he could make a decision more complex than fight or flight. Neither of them would be ideal to resolve his current problem, as the fallen King's people stared up at his killer.

As Harry's body slowly calmed, his eyes moved over the crowd. Some of the people had expressions of gratitude, bordering on reverence, for the man who had freed them from a tyrant,. But others did not. The soldiers he had fought for the past months, in particular, looked furious at what he had done, and more than a few had their weapons already in hand.

Harry, standing above them, felt his magic respond to the perceived threat by flowing fast through his veins. It was well and truly ready to spring forth and wreak havoc amongst those who would hurt him, and that was an option Harry was considering. With the amount of blood coating his hands after the previous months, what difference would another handful of lives make?

His first move was reactive, rather than one born of intent. He felt the air shift behind him, and the exhalation of a soldier as he took a third step and threw his spear into the air. Harry turned, his hand rising, and the spear stopped in mid air. With a thought, his green eyes burned bright, and fire leapt onto the head of the weapon as the soldier turned on his heel and shoved a middle-aged woman out of his way. The man was intelligent enough to realise the folly of his mistake. Even if it had occurred to him too late to make a difference.

The spear shot through the air, and a streak of orange hung in the air behind it as it found its mark.

The soldier, a young man in the customary green overalls of Harry's enemy, fell to his knees as his torso was punctured. He died quickly, and fell forwards. The spear's fire was snuffed out along with the life of the man it had killed, and with that pandemonium broke loose.

Harry leapt into the air from the platform on which the King had been making his speech, and landed with his foot on the back of a soldier. His heel rose and fell, grinding the man's ribs to dust, as Harry conjured and tossed a blade into the crowd. It found his target, and the uniformed man's sprint carried him forwards with a knife in his throat and no light in his eyes. The sword in his hand cut a long, shallow wound into an old man who had not been fast enough to get out of the dead man's way, and a shout greeted the wound as the old man stumbled away and into the path of another soldier, who shoved him aside and to the ground.

Harry didn't notice what became of the old man next, as another blade appeared in his hand and flew to greet the approaching soldier. Landing in the man's shoulder, the effect was not so instantaneous as those delivered to any of the previous enemies Harry had dealt with. The man gave an infuriated roar, as he raised the sword to prepare a blow to the committer of regicide. It was followed by another yell, this one of agony, as electricity coursed through his body.

As the smell of singed meat reached him, Harry was moving past the electrocuted man with a third knife in hand. Nothing special, an entirely disposable blade. Another yell announced the presence of an enemy, and Harry stepped aside as the young man, barely more than a boy, tried to run him through. He seized the wrist, and his knife ran along the sleeve covering his forearm, through the tendons below. The green material turned red, and Harry flung the boy aside. He felt a spark of mild surprise as a sword hacked into the young soldier's neck, and put it aside as he sent a bolt of white energy into the face of another soldier. The man fell asleep, never to awaken again, and Harry planted a foot in his chest to send the still-standing body into four others.

He followed, and his sharp blade opened the first man's throat with a single, quick motion. Harry left the knife in the second man's skull, and his knuckles glowed a pale white with the banishing charm as they connected with the third's temple. He was flung onto the fourth man, and the sword in his hand. The man who had just killed his ally, and was now under the dying man, kicked his friend off and tried to rise to his feet.

A piercing curse found the centre of his forehead, and the man's body fell limp as Harry created another knife and caught an approaching soldier in an imitation of an embrace, with the blade buried in the man's gut.

Harry made no move on the next man to make an attempt on him, as the soldier's legs were swept from under him. The girl who had done as much imitated the yell that many of the men gave in an effort to intimidate, and the falsetto sound stood out amongst the clamour of battle as she plunged a spear into the downed man's chest. It was a flaw that Harry had noted many times, that they wore vests made to combat gunshots when they fought singularly with medieval weaponry. He had seen a handful only a handful of guns in his time here, and plate armour would have done more against swords and spears and knives by far.

The girl screamed again, as she charged another soldier. Unfortunately, this one was prepared, and avoided the blow easily. As his sword cut into the girl's shoulder, a cutting curse opened his back and severed the man's spine. Blood hit the floor moments before its owner.

Harry caught his next attacker by both wrists, mentally applauding the fact that the man held two swords in an attempt to catch him off guard. Harry pulled the man towards him, and caught the man's throat in his teeth. Tearing a chunk away, he drew back and headbutted the man. When the wizard released the wrists in his grasp, the man let his blades fall to the mud, clutching his throat instead, and dropped to the ground himself. His foot crushed the man's skull, and Harry conjured a larger blade as he fell into a crouch and swung the machete.

The soldier in a more ornate uniform, representing that he was of higher rank, screamed as the blade passed through his ankle with virtually no resistance. It was sharper than could be achieved by natural means, and the second foot was likewise removed from the main body of the general. He seemed to hang in the air for a moment before falling to the earth next to his still-stood lower legs. The man kept a hold of his sword, though, in order to put up a defiant fight against the wizard before dying.

Even as Harry leapt on the man, a severing charm removed the hand from his wrist and the sword from consideration.

Blood bubbled through the man's lips as Harry drove the blade into his lung. And then again, into his gut, and again and again until the man was long dead. Harry snarled, as he let the blade, slick from blood, remain buried in the general's gut. He stood, and found nobody else attacking, much to his surprise.

Then, the magical with a mane of black hair, matted with blood, looked at the area around him. By now, all of the soldiers should have converged on him. And there were hundreds of them present for their leader's speech.

Instead, they seemed to have found opposition in the form of the thousands of regular civilians in the area. And in some of their own that had turned against those they had previously fought with side by side.

The King had been a sadist and tyrant, and Harry's actions had given them the courage to stand against the soldiers who had been equally responsible for the pain that had plagued this land.

Harry felt a rope, invisible to the human eye, and his as well, wrap around his chest and under his armpits. He dropped a newly summoned knife, and prepared himself. The curse word was closer to a growl, and Harry closed his eyes.

The deity on the other end of this rope tugged, and Harry was pulled from the world he had been confined to for the past half-year.


	2. Arrival

**Eventually there will be dialogue, it just so happens that these first two chapters haven't had character interaction in that sense (and the third won't have a whole lot, either).**

The weather here was warmer than the world Harry had left. The sky had been overcast there, though, so Harry could not say whether that was because this place was warm or the other cool.

Nor did it matter. If he was dropped straight into this world, it meant there was no time to be wasted learning about the climate. He could breathe, and it was neither cold nor hot enough to affect his capabilities. That meant he only had to worry about the vertigo that would come once he moved.

He stood, stumbled, and emptied his stomach on the wall he fell against as the world spun. Finishing, Harry grunted and pushed himself away from the bricks. He was annoyed that, even now, the sensation caused him such distress. He would expect some level of resistance to build up over time. And time was one thing he this employment had taken from him in abundance.

The world was a blur, reminding him of a time, many lives ago, when his vision had been flawed. When he had worn… glasses, to correct that flaw. Another reason it would be of a benefit to him to take some time to adjust, but his reasoning still stood. This world didn't have time for him to sit and wait for his body to adjust itself to this new environment.

Harry closed his eyes, and extended his magic. It rushed from his pores, and the world around him came into focus in his mind's-eye. The alley he was in had little of interest. The dumpster halfway between Harry and the mouth was empty but for a crust of mould on the bottom, and the metal bins on either side did not have even that. The bricks were unweathered, suggesting that the buildings they belonged to were relatively new additions to the area. Shops, perhaps. The only people in either were on his right, motionless and devoid of energy. They must be… fake humans. The ones that were dressed to showcase clothing. Harry could not remember what they were called; it was a useless piece of information, and one he had not had use for for too many years to count.

The area beyond the dead stores was of more interest to Harry than the immediate vicinity, and began to explain the reason that he was placed in this spot.

The commotion was being watched by civilians cowering in doorways or at either end of the street. Harry felt the air shifting around those nearest him, and noticed the loss of hearing he was experiencing. His deafness was temporary, no more worrying than any other side effect of being tossed between dimensions. Easily forgotten, thanks to months of chaos and screaming.

The people, nine of the twelve being male, were shouting something. Their arms were raised, as though their words were of rebuke, and Harry's attention lingered on them for a millisecond or two. His mind, in this state, rarely did more than registering a person and the tone of their energy. This, though, was interesting; it was as though they were at a sporting event. As though brawls in the street that produced violent spikes of magic… or something similar, were commonplace.

Harry could not understand the why of their actions without looking deeper, and Legilimency at this distance and in his state would take minutes, rather than seconds. He could not spare minutes, and so would need to discover their mindsets when he was done, if it was important.

In the centre of the commotion, there were two females who were undeniably different to the armoured figures circling them. One was in agony on the floor, and she stood out amongst the crowd. A pillar of light ablaze amongst fireflies. But her light was muffled by something else. An energy very different from her own encased the girl, and seemed to be the cause of her pain.

The other girl, a human Harry almost dismissed in comparison to her unique companion, was retracting from the wing-less alien. She had tried to remove whatever was binding the other girl, and had apparently been caused pain by the action. She would fall to the floor in seconds, unconscious, and Harry expected that would signal the end of this fight.

He agreed with the effort, though. As a human, her spark was only that. A spark. Like all non-magicals by birth, she had some potential, but her core was only enough to give her life and that potential was limited. The others around were stronger. They could not match the captured alien's strength, but their glow was greater than that of a human. The human girl would not have stood a chance against them even in a level playing field, let alone as outnumbered as she was. Even the most remarkable of human warriors would be quickly overwhelmed by the odds. With the magical weapons in their hands, the fight would take seconds at most.

Less, based on the crippling pain their energy was causing the alien-girl. He wondered what that was. It felt as though they had mixed magic and electricity, but Harry thought such a thing to be impossible. He could barely allow mechanical gadgets to function in the presence of magic, let alone work _with_ it. The closest he had come was to, through significant effort, let them run on magical energy.

But what they were, and the technology of their race, wasn't important. The glow that came from the weapons that had been drawn was significant. Harry had to assume that it would spike, again, when a blow was struck. He could not know how dangerous even one would be to him. There were twenty-one of them, each with a wielder, and that meant they had to be considered as something approaching formidable. Unlike the humans he had just fought.

His eyes remained closed as Harry fell to a crouch.

He hesitated for a moment, in that position, as the energy beneath his skin sizzled. He couldn't treat them with the certainty he held when facing humans, lest their strength take him off guard, but under-doing it was preferable to going overboard. At least, it was on a populated world.

So he had to make a judgement call. If he was wrong, there was every chance the tide of this skirmish would turn further against those already losing.

How much power could he use on them?

Ideally, they would survive the encounter, but when two forces clashed people died. There was nothing Harry could to change that nature of battle, and the droplets of blood that would stain his hands were nothing compared to the ocean already marking him. Fatal spells would be acceptable, because Harry needed to assert that they wouldn't get back up and drive a sword through his back.

But he couldn't go all out. He couldn't even use a fraction of his power, in fact. Of course he couldn't; there was no reason to take the spectators with these combatants. Harry had to bear in mind their power, and the chasm between them and him.

They were not gods, and Harry had no desire to obliterate them.

So he would stick to his basic gifts. The magic used by wand-wizards, and the result of her _experiment_ only a few years after his role had begun; the magic was only dangerous if uncontrolled, or if he decided it should be.

He would give them a test. If they fell to a simple area-spell, there would be no reason to finish them off. If not, there was no skin off Harry's back.

As he leapt into the sky, the lids stayed covering his emerald orbs. He soared upwards, the peak of Harry's jump being thirty metres above the rooftops, and took a deep breath of the fresh air. It was cleaner than he had experienced for months. The previous world's atmosphere had been polluted by death.

Even as a mid-length blade, with a longer handle than would usually be found on a short-sword, appeared in his hand, Harry Potter relied on the sight his mind's-eye provided. He would throughout the fight.

By the time he fell from the sky, the human-girl was unconscious and twitching on the floor next to her ally. The other aliens moved towards their prizes, and Harry sensed seven of the fifteen weapons that had been drawn were now sheathed. They believed the fight was done, and were complacent.

Good. Harry didn't know their capabilities, and an advantage of surprise was welcome.

Harry took hold of the short-sword's extended handle with his left hand, as well as the right, as he neared his landing spot. The alien was motionless, letting the others move to capture or kill the girls they had defeated, and his weapon was devoid of life at his hip. That made Harry's job easier, again.

The wings on the male alien's back did not feel like feathers. Harry assumed that they, too, would serve as some form defense. They did nothing to hinder him, though, as they rested folded against his target's upper back. He fell to the earth, and the alien's head began to tilt upwards, perhaps noticing a shadow, as Harry struck.

This first alien would give Harry an idea of their physical composition. He had met species, in the past, that looked to be made of flesh and blood but whose skin was impenetrable without a truly magical blade.

Harry cleaved the man from shoulder to hip, carving through the armour with virtually no resistance with the magically-sharp blade, and the man's blood spilled onto Harry's back as he drove the point of his sword into the ground.

His mind's-eye saw no colour, just the nature of the magic that exploded outwards from that point, but Harry knew the stunning magic to have a deep ruby colour. It would have been brilliant to behold, in this form, as it exploded into a dome and outwards.

As the avian-humanoid aliens were engulfed, Harry was already rising to his feet. His blade came with him, but was unused as he planted his palm in the chest of the cut alien. Magic flashed again, and the avian-man was tossed backwards as though a child had grown sick of its doll.

Harry pounced, lunging into the air and catching the brightest of the soldiers in an embrace as many others began to drop around them. One thing Harry had learned was that many other races had a greater endurance to wide-range spells than humans. He was not surprised, so much as disappointed, that a little over half had only been dazed by the stunning dome. Nor was it shocking that many of those that fell were the ones who had sheathed their weapons prematurely, which showed a certain mental mental weakness; their spirits did nothing to resist Harry's spell.

The blade pierced the winged-alien's chest, and Harry pushed against gravity as he planted a foot against the man and shoved him off the blade. Blood sprayed in the air as the armoured man fell backwards, and Harry spun in the air. With a snapping of his elbow, he threw the blade at the nearest fighter. It buried in the woman's skull, and her light fled instantly. Her helmet _clicked_ against the floor as she landed, evidently worthless against any fighter of significant strength. Perhaps they had not considered that someone of Harry's ability would be present? Though the bright-but-unconscious girl would have the strength to kill them, even with the armour, surely.

And if she was part of a pacifistic race, why would they need to capture her?

Harry allowed gravity to take effect, and landed poised to begin again. He lunged, quick and arching, and blue light shone from his hands. The markings he was so used to were alight, as the magic in his blood broiled. His hands caught the ankles of one of the aliens, and the man yelled as his flight was interrupted by the unexpected weight. Harry's feet touched the ground, and his arms yanked down. The armoured man's face was the first thing to meet the ground, and Harry's ears caught the sound of his bones _crunching_ as his skull met concrete. The man was without a helmet, but even defended his brain would have bounced around inside.

Harry threw himself backwards out of the path of a thrown axe, and the weapon passed within inches of his face. The electricity around the blade was closer still, and almost brushed against him.

 _Sloppy_ , Harry berated himself, in the quiet of his own mind.

Harry was still in the air when another spell leapt at the offender. The light that shot from his palm was purple to those with open eyes, and the use of such magic would have sickened the wizard in his youth. The bolt caught the thrower in the shoulder, and the man fell. It would be some time until somebody discovered the twin streaks of blood from his eyes, and the crimson colour of his sclera. The alien was dead as could be, though the cause would take more time again to discover. The aneurism Harry had caused was massive, but surprisingly subtle when compared to many of the other spells so effective in the ending of lives.

Harry landed in a roll, kept moving and casting.

Four were dead, ten were unconscious, one was dying. That left six. A voice niggled Harry reminding him that it was six _teen_ , so long as ten were alive. They could become a threat at any moment.

The wizard shook his head. There was no reason to condemn them to death, while they still slept soundly.

Five, as Harry sent another simple, effective spell into the gut of the largest of their number, even if the man's girth was not indicative of threat. The man dropped, spasming, to the ground. Most likely, the nerve-stimulating spell would not kill him, but unless he had an incredible will the man would never recover from the damage to his nerve endings. Certainly not before the end of this fight, if the showing so far was indicative of the aliens' toughness.

Of the five left, three were closer to the incapacitated girls. They should have taken them hostage. That would be the logical thing to do, even if it would not have worked, as they could have distracted Harry if nothing else. But that course of action, apparently, did not occur to the aliens. They rushed to face him, meaning Harry had to worry about the two nearer.

The magic flooding Harry's blood had long-since saturated his muscles, and the benefits were clear as a spear was stabbed towards his ribs. Harry's palms closed over the shaft, below the spearhead, and he forced the weapon upwards, stepping forwards with the motion as the alien's shock radiated from him. Harry would later decide that was because the man could see his eyes were closed, but at the time paid it no mind.

Harry's magic lashed out, and the internal energy of the beings around was eclipsed by it. Even the energy of gods was muffled when inside, and the pure magic that leapt from Harry's skin was dazzling. That was transferred to the alien, as the whip of magic struck his ribs and branded him with the long, thin, glowing mark. The man was thrown away, and Harry was vaguely aware of the car that crumpled as the alien struck it.

Harry ducked low next, an electrified sword passing harmlessly through the air and leaving a streak of white for Harry's inner-eye, as he spun with the spear in a tight grip.

The tip slipped under the armour, piercing the alien's abdomen. The man gasped, and Harry heard it. Not too jarring a trip, then, if his deafness was fading already. The man's blood spilled over Harry's hands as he twisted the haft, and cast his magic upon the weapon. Channelled through the spear, it reached Harry's stabbed enemy in a moment. The man's heart stopped, and Harry pulled the weapon free of its trap.

Harry let the weapon fall to the floor upon _seeing_ that the three remaining had hesitated at the display. They were only just moving as the eighth alien perished.

A tendril of Harry's magic slithered off the back of his right hand, as Harry stood with his eyes closed. The nature changed, and the colour would have done the same for those with open eyes. The deep red of a stunner formed the shape of a whip, as Harry raised his hand perpendicular to his shoulder. His hand wrapped around the magic, energy turning solid with his will, and swung it like a whip.

His arm, and the magic that accompanied it, left a trail of glowing shapes in the air behind. A pattern that may have been beautiful, had Harry not seen the like time and time again.

The three crumpled, falling to the floor, and Harry opened his eyes.

The scene before him, when the world stopped spinning, was one of carnage.

His stunner had been weak by the time it reached the crowd, the energy having dispersed into a wider area by that time, so there were only three of fifty that had fallen unconscious. He would debate whether that was a good or bad thing later, weighing the upside of not rendering civilians unconscious against the cons of those same civilians seeing him practice magic so soon after arrival, but grimaced seeing the devices that the majority of the observers held. Compared to the energy it took to keep a person alive, the battery of a mobile phone was insignificant, hence his missing the tiny lights while briefly scanning them.

Harry guessed, upon his first glance of this world, that they were advanced. Not to the level of the futuristic worlds he had seen, since none of those present seemed to be mechanical servants, but enough for communication devices to fit in a pocket and include cameras.

Harry ventured a guess that he would be here for some time; he had not been pulled out yet, so this single event didn't hold some monumental significance, therefore he had some other task to see to completion. But it had to be part of the task, Harry was certain; had it not been, he would not have been thrown into this… town, Harry judged, from the buildings and people. Houses and small shops, seeming to be split between chain-stores and locally owned. Harry recognised a coffee shop, and shook his head in slight amusement and bemusement. Somehow, Starbucks existed in the majority of modern Earths he had visited. An anomaly, or some eternal being amusing itself, it didn't _matter_. It was just a curiosity.

Harry heard a cry from behind him, and was reminded of the powerful girl. He turned, and stepped towards her with some confusion. It was odd that she had weathered the stunner, given that her nerves should have been raw from whatever was caging her. Perhaps the bonds had protected her, by either absorbing or repelling the magic.

Then, the wizard stopped as his foot tried to slip out from under him. The blood on the ground was slick, and the leather boots he wore were worn from use. So were the trousers Harry wore. He would need to either find or make some new attire when he as done here.

That thought reminded Harry of his lack of a shirt. And with it came another problem.

The markings adorning his body were largely confined to his arms and torso; in his youth, Harry had asked for that. It had seemed important at the time, though he could no longer remember the reasons. Harry wondered what the humans would make of the symbols, but the greater concern was the fact that they made him extremely recognisable. They were almost impossible to miss, when combined with his musculature. That meant a haircut and shave would only do so much.

And he couldn't hide them through shifting. He could apply glamours, but the magic that had been used to brand him was… _greater_ than that type of spell. It'd be overpowered after a brief fight, and Harry's efforts would be for nought.

His hand traced the Ankh over his heart, and Harry shook his head. Short of wiping the spectators' memories, there was nothing to be done to rectify that mistake. And their phones would still have pictures and videos of him; if they were saved to a cloud, or whatever it may be called here, such actions would only make the situation worse.

Harry waved a hand at the floor, and the gore that was between him and the girl he now saw was either a petite blonde in a rather tight white shirt, red cape and blue skirt, or an also petite redhead in a rather tight outfit that, for some reason, resembled the likeness of a bat. And also had a cape. The puddle of blood disappeared, along with the rest, as Harry noted the thick wire wrapped around the blonde, and that this meant she was the restrained alien.

Harry raised his hand, preparing to dismantle the cable, and hesitated.

He stepped closer, and crouched next to the girl, as the helmet of the nearest winged-figure hopped into his hand. It shone blue for a second as he turned the object into a portkey that would pull him to the alley in which he had woken after ten seconds.

Harry laid a finger on the metal, and waited for the shock that was sure to come. It didn't. All he felt was a tingling warmth that came from any raw form of energy, and was pleasant for someone with Harry's particular cocktail of abilities. That meant he hadn't needed to worry about the weapons the invaders wielded.

Harry's mind moved to memories that he despised.

The helmet fell from Harry's grip as his teeth clenched, and he forced himself to look at the face of the girl he was helping. He hoped the action would do something to distract him, and was glad that it did.

As his eyes met brilliantly blue orbs, Harry realised something; the girl was beautiful. As attractive as many of the goddesses Harry had met. Yet she was mortal. Blonde hair caught the sun in a way Harry had never seen before, and framed flawless skin as sweat beaded on her forehead. An effect of the painful energy.

Harry considered her, as her blue eyes stared back at him with defiance, and nodded to himself. Whatever the purpose of his being here, it had to involve this girl; to be placed next to someone so different from the common stock was no coincidence. He glanced at the inside of his left elbow, but there was no mark there just yet. He expected that, over the next few hours, a shield with an angular _S_ would appear. There would be no compass this time, as he already knew who he would be protecting, but he'd be given the facts of this alien teenager when _they_ saw fit to bring him into their dimension.

The girl tried to hide a flinch as Harry reached out a hand, he hadn't noticed if she'd done so the first time, and stiffened further when a yellow spark jumped from his finger and onto the cable encasing her. Then, she just looked at him in shock as the restraints fell away. Harry felt a desire to see what she was thinking, and fought it off. She may need to trust him for his goal to be achieved, and reading her thoughts would hinder that.

Harry stood, and stepped back while keeping his eyes on the girl. He wondered what her power meant. Her magic was strong enough to have blessed her with beauty, but that would not be the extent of her changes. Harry was curious to see what else there was.

Then she was on her feet. The series of movements in the act of standing had been incredibly quick. Harry had seen a blur of motion, but that had lasted for barely a millisecond.

Interesting.

The girl stared past Harry, at the bodies he had left behind, with a confused expression- horror in her eyes. Harry wondered why, as the girl looked at him with curiosity that he was sure would be mirrored in his own gaze, but did not ask. She was judging him, and was near to condemnation. Her mind could be made up for her easily, so Harry stayed silent and still.

The girl's head snapped from Harry to the girl on the ground next to her.

'Babs!' She had a pleasant voice. Full of youthful worry. Harry watched as she moved with the same speed as before to kneel at the other girl's side. Harry did not know what their relationship was; she could have been adopted by the girl's family, the two could be friends, or they could be lovers. Whatever the truth may be, the bonde alien's hands shook as she placed a finger against 'Babs's' throat, looking for a pulse, with deliberate caution. As though she was worried the other girl would break. Harry wondered if her concerns were warranted, and she was strong as well as fast.

Harry took the fact that the blonde's shoulders fell, and a soft sigh reached him, to mean that she had found a pulse. If the unconscious girl had stood against the invading aliens, she was an ally of the alien Harry's mission was centered around. Therefore, it was fortunate that the electricity had not killed her.

The first human observer who arrived was wearing a blue uniform, with a star-shaped badge on the chest. The man had, attached to his belt, a handgun, aerosol can, handcuffs, and a baton. Harry quickly decided that the man was an officer of the law, and decided he disliked the fact that the man's hand was on his gun's grip in the same thought. Harry had just killed a half-dozen aliens, and he guessed that the officer was trying to decide on the lawfulness, or illegality, of that. The police-man was trying to decide if it classed as murder if the victim- victims were neither human or friendly.

Harry did not want to stay until he made a decision. An ordinary man with a gun was no more of a threat than a hornet but, that being said, hornet stings… stung; Harry wouldn't seek them out if it could be avoided.

With a thought, the helmet jumped back into his hand. Harry felt the familiar _tug_ , and the alleyway appeared around him.

Kara Zor-El, more often known either as Kara Kent, by those who knew her secret identity, or Supergirl by the general public, brushed a hair away from Barbara's closed eye. Kara was not known for her patience, but was resisting the temptation to shake Batgirl awake. Kara was wondering, at the moment, whether she should take Barbara back to Gotham. Batman wouldn't be there, but Alfred would know what to do.

As the Kryptonian girl decided that that was the right thing to do, she caught a strange, swirling blur of motion in the corner of her eye, and Kara's head snapped up along with her fists. She didn't know what that was, and Supergirl's instincts were frayed enough that she assumed it was an enemy.

A police officer was standing next to her, his gun partially drawn.

Kara's eyes scanned the area with the speed that came with her physiology, and she couldn't find anything to explain it.

But where was the magician?

She turned on the spot, twisting her head around to see if he was behind her now. He wasn't, and Kara frowned. She had assumed the long-haired man would have stuck around to introduce himself, at the very least. Kara thought it must have been a new hero coming to her aid. Surely he would have wanted to have a conversation with her. She was an expert in heroics, if she did say so herself, and could have given the hairy guy plenty of advice.

Maybe he didn't think about that. Most heroes wouldn't consider the way that the person they'd saved could help them out, and she knew of more than a handful that avoided sticking around after it was over like they would get cooties from reporters. Batman was the example that sprung to mind, and Babs, since she'd learned from him. And this newbie could easily be taking cues from Gotham's Dark Knight; Batman was almost as popular as Kara's cousin.

Or maybe he wasn't a hero. Kara looked at the dead aliens with a frown. Batman and her cousin would have choice words about the man's methods, she knew. Kara didn't understand why he had done it. He had knocked most of them out, so what had been the point in killing others? How could he hope to be a hero if he went around killing them? Especially when it was so _unnecessary_.

Scooping Barbara into her arms, one below her knees and the other under her shoulders, Kara's mind stayed on the subject. She thought it over while they were flying, and wondered, when they touched down, whether she should have looked for the emerald-eyed man while she was in Smallville. She was sure that, if she'd tried, she could have heard where he was… but she was right to have taken care of Babs first, wasn't she?

Kara glanced at the peaceful, but slightly pained, face of her friend and the answer came easily. Of course she'd done the right thing. Barbara's life was more important than finding a rogue hero.

Alfred was too concerned with taking checking Barbara was unharmed to pay attention to the conflict Kara was having, and when the others returned to the partially-destroyed house it would not be Clark who picked up on her mood, he was too dense to pick up on her emotions, nor would it be Batman; even without his injuries, the cowled man would not have cared. Wonder Woman would be the only member of the League to give her a shoulder to lean on. The Amazonian sat next to Kara, and gave the girl a half hug, figuring that she was upset about her friend's condition, and gave a comforting reassurance that Barbara would be fine.

At the same time, Harry Potter was past his own emotional problems, and instead sat before a computer gathering all the information he could find on the Super-powered peoples of this world. It was a concerning development, and he was trying to connect the dots enough to tell him his purpose.

So far, his progress was slow.


	3. Research and a Haircut

**Don't ask me to explain the physics of Dark Matter any further. It's been a month since I wrote this chapter, and I've no idea what any of it means. (This isn't an invitation to explain it to me, either. No doubt many of you are smarter than me, but I've got no interest in being lectured at; if ever I need it again, I'll learn a passable amount like I did for this chapter)**

Harry Potter snapped the laptop that sat before him shut, and closed his eyes. Pressing a finger and thumb against his temples, he sent a soothing pulse of magic in to alleviate some of the throbbing headache that had gathered through the night.

It was no great sacrifice to put up with a smidge of pain in exchange for learning about the uniqueness of this world compared to the others he had visited, but Harry had allowed it to grow for a while too long. He waited for a few moments, as the pressure lessened, and reviewed the information he had garnished from the piles of crap that made up most of the data online.

Amongst the harmless bullshit, and the disturbing and unnerving that he would try to forget, Harry had found a fairly reliable group of websites devoted to specific… superheroes. That was a term he disliked, if only for the fact that it suggested they were inherently _good_. He did not believe that for a second; everything he had ever seen told him that the majority of people were, at best, self-interested. For there to be dozens, _hundreds_ , of truly selfless people blessed with powers was… _unlikely_.

Ridiculous, even.

His suspicions were slightly alleviated by the presence of the heroes' polar opposites. Villains served as a balance, to a degree, and there did seem to be a good deal more of them than there were heroes; perhaps this world simply dealt with absolutes more than Harry had seen in the past. Nothing was black and white in life, but power tended to divide people more than anything else in most every matter.

Harry's primary purpose had been to find out about the blonde alien he had rescued. His purpose here involved her, so Harry had deemed that vitally important. However, his online search had initially presented him with a separate hero altogether, even if he seemed to be of some relation. The search for S-Shield, a symbol that had been on her shirt, had taken him to countless websites, news articles, and many less savoury things devoted to an alien called Superman.

Superman.

Super-Man.

It was a simple name, direct and to the point. He was a _man_ with _superpowers_. But, still, Harry disliked it. Surely they could have been more creative about it, if the world had collectively combined their brainpower. Hell, Harry would have approved more of Krypto-man, even if that would have been a weird name; people knew of Superman's planet, so why not make use of that? He shook his head.

But the superpowered man's name wasn't especially important. Harry had summoned a pad of paper and made a list of the man's abilities, which were numerous. Next to it, were a few skeletal plans on how to face him in combat, that were mainly focused around using what Superman would believe to be innocent civilians against him, until Harry could find a chunk of Green-Rock. There were places claiming to sell it, and criminals trying to buy it, in the seedier corners of the web, but Harry was extremely sceptical about the sellers' validity.

Harry found some amusement at the thought of Superman meeting one of the criminals who had bought a fake piece of the material, and the look of horror on the criminal's face upon discovering he had been duped. Then he made a note of finding some in due time.

The prevailing theory about the rock was that it was irradiated in some way that wasn't naturally occurring, and if Harry could get a hold of some there was a chance he could replicate it. That would give him a great advantage, which would only be helped by another discovery. This particular find was what Harry had based most of the plans upon.

Superman was incredibly moral. Harry could not find a single recorded incident of the hero killing, or even allowing a person to come to any harm at all unless it was absolutely unavoidable. A shame; Harry believed that the man could have made a real difference if he finished the job, instead of throwing terrorists and super-villains and serial killers into jail to escape or be released time and again.

But, then, they all seemed to have the same views on the subject. None of the numerous superheroes Harry could find seemed to kill. He could guess at their logic; there were plenty of people who believed killing was never acceptable. Harry had, once, been amongst their number but, now, could not remember the reasoning that had guided him to that opinion. He was no longer conflicted when it came to sending those who would bring pain to others on their way before their natural life had run its course.

But that was him. Harry was well aware of the differences between he and an ordinary person. Or even someone extraordinary.

From Superman, Harry had found the most significant super-group that seemed to exist. The Justice League was a conglomeration of Superheroes of significant strength. It was sound logic; all of them seemed capable from the sources Harry found on the internet, the video coverage doing the best job of illustrating their strength, but together they could do significantly more than separate. They were responsible for vanquishing the Thanagarian invasion, as Harry found out the winged-aliens were named.

Oddly, it did not seem to have been solely on the back of Superman. Or the Martian Manhunter, or Wonder Woman. Harry found himself very surprised to find out that it had been Batman, a man without superpowers from what Harry could tell, that had successfully destroyed the device, some kind of transporter that would have torn the earth apart.

Harry had spent as much time looking into Batman as Superman, as a result. The results were... impressive, if slightly disappointing. There were plenty instances of people claiming to have met the black-caped man, most of which Harry assumed were bull, and none of them described him as… a _boy scout_ , Harry believed was the term used to describe Superman, so why was he so set on not dealing with the dangerous, sadistic, repeat criminals in an _effective_ manner?

During the time spent researching, Harry spent some time looking at the criminals that opposed each member of the League as well as at the members themselves. Some gave Harry the impression that they were formidable, and it was plain to the wizard that Lex Luthor, in particular, was far more intelligent than he, but many came across as _quirky_. As though they meant to be amusing, more than intimidating. The Flash, in particular, seemed to attract clowns and jesters.

But there was only one _literal_ clown, and he was the one Harry found himself reading up on. He was the one that resulted in the desk being shattered, repaired, and burned only to be repaired again. The Joker. A cruel, twisted man if Harry had ever seen one. A man who was locked in Arkham Asylum, a mental institute that appeared to be a second home to the criminally insane. A place that had housed the Joker two dozen times before, and had never managed to keep him confined for even a year.

 _Fucking ridiculous_. Harry had hissed, without meaning to. He had dismissed the sensation travelling the length of his spine, his body being too tense for it to register.

Harry's eyes had burned, not from tears, upon reading another article and the corners of the laptop were still deformed by the heat he had given off without thinking. The author had praised Batman for his policy of helping a disturbed man who knew no better, one of very few in the media with that viewpoint, and Harry would have believed him to be an idiot for doing so even if the story wasn't quite so disturbing as this incident.

A police officer had stumbled upon a scene of one of Joker's crimes, responding to a call from a street away and hearing a scream when the young girl the clown was keeping captive had broken a window. It seemed she had tried to shout for help, before the Joker had grabbed her again and pulled her back into the darkness.

They didn't know what had been done to her. She had been incoherent ever since. But she had been stripped naked and burned bodies, later identified as belonging to the girl's family, had been found in the cage in which she had slept and shit and ate. All they knew was that she was now in Arkham with her torturer, wearing a straight jacket and cursing God and screaming that she was going to kill the Joker for what he had put her through. And Batman for keeping the Clown Prince alive.

The officer had arrived on the scene moments before the Dark Knight. Harry was sure the girl wished he had arrived a minute before, so that that could have been the end. The Cop had probably wished the same thing, based on the records Harry had found giving vague details of what happened after.

The Joker, insane as he was, had just giggled and cackled when the Officer found him in the room with the shit, blood, and vomit stained girl. She had had new cuts criss-crossing over partially-healed older gashes, and her cries were shrill and loud according to the Cop's leaked note. The policeman had vomited at the sight, and Harry found himself wishing that the man had not. The outcome may have been completely different, had that been the case.

He had raised his gun. Had been about to shoot him.

Then, Batman intervened. He had knocked the gun aside, and the Joker had been skimmed by the bullet; a shallow groove had been opened in the side of the clown's head, instead of a bullet-hole in his officer had found his wrists bound, and the gun thrown away. He had watched the scene unfold before him.

Batman had not been calm. Had he been, he could not have been human. Either that, or he could not have been a hero. Psychopaths, by definition, didn't care enough to put themselves in harm's way for the general public.

Gotham's Knight had beaten the Joker within an inch of his life. The Joker had been hospitalised and it had taken him ten months to recover enough to walk out of the hospital, killing a dozen on his way out.

And for all the pain Batman had caused the clown, the Joker had kept laughing. Cackling and giving encouragement as Batman lost control, and beat him to a pulp.

That was what the Policeman had highlighted in his note. He had written about the laughter that had stayed with him, haunting him when he closed his eyes, when he was alone, when the world around him was quiet. Harry had heard of insomnia-induced psychiatric disorders, and clearly the officer had as well. He was terrified that he was becoming _like him_. Drugs hadn't helped. Therapists hadn't realised how horrible it was until it was too late.

The officer had been found with his brains painting the wall behind him, his service weapon hanging from his hand and a long, scribbled note on the table before him next to an empty glass.

Harry wondered if Batman knew of the man's fate. If not, Harry would tell him upon their inevitable meeting.

Other than the Joker, Batman's information had lead to a familiar-looking girl. It had taken Harry only a few seconds to realise she was the redhead that had been unconscious next to the alien girl. That she was called Batgirl made Harry shake his head, realising just how corny and unimaginative these people were, but it had served as a welcome distraction from the previous line of inquiry.

There were only a handful of properly-covered stories involving her, and Harry found that they focused on Bat _man_ far more than his rookie female counterpart. That was fair, given that he was leading the efforts, more experienced, and incredibly formidable considering the fact that he was an ordinary human. He also noticed that _Robin_ was covered in a decent number of the Batman stories, and more interestingly that Robin had changed twice, though all seemed to share basic features.

Harry found a few videos after that, and two of those of Batgirl gave decent detail of her fighting. They were six months apart, and the difference was striking. Based on the drastic growth, Harry quickly decided she must have started before being trained by Batman, and that the man had given her the equivalent of a Crash-course in crime fighting.

He moved on from learning about Batgirl, and onto his original target, thanks to a video he had not been expecting. It was pornographic, and the title had pertained to Batgirl fucking someone named Supergirl.

Upon deciding that her wearing the same shield as Superman, and the uncreative nature of this world, meant the blonde and Supergirl must be one and the same, Harry had been near-certain that it would be fake. Despite this… curiosity had gotten the better of him. Supergirl had been beautiful, and both had been in excellent physical form. Harry was a heterosexual male, and still had _those_ desires. Whether or not it was fake, watching two young women have sex was hardly the end of the world. Or even a chore.

It _had_ been fake. Two attractive women had dressed up as Supergirl and Batgirl and, with very little plot, had undressed each other. Harry turned it off, finding the fakeness of it all, and the acting that was _incredibly_ sub-par, off-putting, and had begun to research Supergirl. She was why he was here, after all.

Unfortunately, there had been less information on Supergirl than any of those he searched so far. Less _information_ ; there were plenty of men on the internet who were expressing an… unhealthy interest in the girl, though they were adamant that she was of legal age. Harry had not considered her age, and wondered whether that was why she had only begun her crime-fighting recently. They were clearly of the same species, maybe she and Superman were family, and the older… brother, or cousin, Harry guessed, had been reluctant to let her put herself in danger.

He nodded, deciding that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, and had sat still for a little while. Harry had not known what to do next.

He noted that Supergirl had been operating in a place called Smallville more than anywhere else, despite the fact that Metropolis was nearby, and Gotham a feasible distance beyond that for somebody who could fly, if she shared her cousin's powers.

Harry had woken in Smallville, and had only made his way into the city because it would be far easier to blend in there than in a small town. And, because he had needed a hotel but had no money. He had, technically, robbed someone in order to get this room. He had stunned a well dressed man, taken the three hundred dollars in his wallet, and left some gold-nuggets in exchange for that and the laptop in his shoulder bag. The man would come out on top, so long as he had backed up his files. If not, this experience would have taught him a valuable lesson. Harry had _rennervated_ the man, and teleported away. Then he had found this hotel, one that seemed to value discretion, before the glamour he wore vanished.

So that meant they had placed him in an ideal location to keep track of Supergirl. Good, it wasn't often that things went right for Harry, so that made quite a bit of difference.

As Harry stood, stretching his back to crack it, rolling his shoulders to alleviate the tension, and clicking his fingers after hours and hours of writing, he glanced over at the clock on the wall. It read 09:43AM, and Harry blinked. He hadn't expected that he'd spent that much time in front of the computer, but it was time well spent to gain an insight to the two sides of this world's conflict. It was far more clear-cut than usual, and while he didn't understand his reasons for being here, his gut had given him a clue beyond Supergirl being involved in some way.

His eyes fell to the fist-sized hole in the wall below the clock, and Harry scowled, berating himself for the unnecessary show of emotion.

The Thanagarians were his enemies, oppressing and harming humans. Killing them in many occasions. The fact that it hadn't been _necessary_ to kill them should not make a difference; they deserved to die. That was what Harry told himself, in the silent room.

But did they? They were soldiers, obeying the orders of higher ups. Harry did not _understand_ that, but he knew that it wasn't deserving of condemnation. They were doing what they believed to be right, and he had no proof that any of those he had killed had done, or _would_ do, anything to lose the right to live.

And they had presented no threat of any kind to Harry. The energy of their weapons had felt _nice_ , for fuck's sake; far from dangerous.

He had not known that, though. Harry _had_ to work on the assumption that they posed a threat to him, lest his underestimation lead to the death of someone necessary to his mission. He couldn't know that they meant Supergirl harm… but he couldn't know that they had _not_. Had he let them, the Thanagarians might have killed her.

Despite his reasoning, Harry's scowl did not leave him. The conflict in his heart was familiar, as he waved a hand at the wall absentmindedly and the hole repaired itself. There was nothing that he could, or would, do to change it, though. That darkness in him was the reason Harry could do what must be done. It had saved countless people from painful deaths, and his light would gladly make that trade every time.

He walked through the hotel room, and entered the bathroom. The reflection that greeted him was one that Harry remembered, but barely recognised. He had been unkempt for well over a year, now, and almost certainly more than two; the land he had just come from, Innis, was a harsh world, but was nothing compared to the world that came before it; he had only faced _men_ in Innis. Neither had been warm, so long hair had been beneficial, not to mention the fact that any sort of manicured appearance would have made him stand out like Mrrog, five-handed Lord of the bandaged Uzead, in a Starbucks.

But Harry hadn't expected it to be so bad. He hadn't seen his reflection, other than a very distorted representation in rushing water, since the world three previous, and his hair then had barely been to the back of his neck. Even at that stage, he'd thought it too long to be practical but they detested buzzcuts for cultural reasons, and he'd been warned the next world's climate would be cold. His beard, then, had been short and well-maintained. Harry didn't especially like having facial hair, but his reasoning had been the same; the number of societies where men were expected to have beards were very common, and had included the world three previous to this one, and a beard made a noticeable difference to the comfort felt in colder climates.

But Harry's hair now hung, shaggy and tangled, to the middle of his back. His beard reached his pectorals, and had twigs tangled in its depths as well as dry blood matting it. Harry wondered whose blood that was, at the same time as he was reaching behind himself to pick at his hair. He found, as he expected, the blood of the first Thanagarian he had dealt with. It, too, was mostly dry by now, but his sitting on a chair for the night meant flakes of the stuff came off onto his fingers. Harry flicked it away, and got to work on removing the image of a caveman-lumberjack lovechild.

It was fortunate that the spectators had had a wide-range of haircuts. From shaved heads to brightly dyed. And most of the men had been clean-shaven. So Harry was free to wear it as he wished.

It didn't take long. Cutting curses, unlike scissors, did not get caught in the tangles of hair and sticks and leafs. When his facial hair was removed entirely, and the hair from his head was only a few centimetres, Harry focused and a wisp of magic wandered off the tip of his right index finger. He cut it shorter again, and shook his whole body to rid himself of tickling hairs. They fell to the floor to join the sizeable amount making him the centre of a pile.

He shuddered slightly, as the hair on his shoulders itched. The sensation spread through his body and into his brain. Harry shook his head, trying to clear the odd feeling, and failed to identify it as significant at the time.

Harry ran a hand over his freshly-cropped hair with a smile. It was a simple pleasure, but he liked the feel of running it against the grain of his millimetres-long cut.

The smile turned to a grin. The stupidly exposed entrance was unexpected, and unwelcome, but this would do _something_ to reduce the fallout. He was damn-near unrecognisable as the long-haired, bearded wizard that had taken down twenty-one Thanagarians and saved the ass of a Kryptonian. Instead, so long as his torso was not bare, if someone looked at him they would see a handsome young man, in his early twenties, who was respectable enough. With short-cropped hair, and the markings that would almost certainly come across as tattoos, Harry might be judged as a thug, but that hardly bothered him.

He didn't plan on staying inconspicuous for long, after all. Just long enough to establish where he would find Supergirl. Or Superman. Or any of Superman's colleagues.

What could bother him, though, was if his marks had been caught on film. Thinking about it, Harry decided that it wasn't even worth hoping they had not; there had been dozens of cameras pointed at him, and he had made no effort to hide them. That was unfortunate. He couldn't hide them for any period of time with a glamour, and the passable version of metamorphmagi Harry had developed was unreliable when used to alter his appearance in subtle ways.

So he would have to cover them with clothes. Long sleeves and gloves, then, as well as a pair of trousers and either shoes or boots. Boots, Harry guessed; someone dressed as something of a goth would stand out less than someone who's apparel was out of place.

Harry stripped the remnants of his clothes, and left them on the floor. He looked past the grime, to the symbols below, and smiled again. More often than not, having them was a hindrance rather than a help, only four of the sixteen - twenty, Harry corrected- serving a purpose beyond sentiment or standing, but they were still important to him. Sentimental, he knew, was pointless, but it wasn't an aspect of his character that could be changed.

Other than power and skill, they were all he had to show for the past thousand-some years. The relationships he had built when necessary, or back when such things seemed _worth_ the hollow pain that came with their end, had never been nurtured and had certainly never lasted. The romantic attachments he had had, rare as they were even when mortals held his attention, had been more troublesome still. Harry had seen lovers die, and had felt the horror that came with their ends. He had learned the lesson, and now the only ones who held any place in his heart were responsible for sending him here.

And they were the ones who had given him the markings. His eyes traced the slight _V_ of seven symbols running under his collarbone, and he wondered when he would be brought back to their realm.

The sword, the spiral, the ring. Destruction, a domain that was unattended by its personification. Delerium, held by a kindhearted being whose tragedy Harry still did not know. Despair, an unnerving deity who carved her own flesh with the hook that protruded from her ring.

Harry ran a hand over the face… the _mask_ branded on the skin just above his right knee. A face split in half. Insanity and serenity. Panic and peace. Delerium and Delight.

And his eyes moved to the other leg. Another reminder of the fate of _her_ family members. Harry did not entirely know the reason for it, but the intricate patterns, the colour of blood, meant _something_. Despair, too, was not the same as she had once been and, no matter how Harry saw the unclothed grey-skinned deity, _she_ cared about all the members of her family.

From the other shoulder, approaching the hollow of his throat, the symbols told of tragedy too, even if it did not match that of Delerium's plight. Their long lives had not been wrought with hardship, as was the case of many mortals, but they had had their fair share of pain.

The skull of a dead god, the heart, the book. Dream, held by _her_ reincarnated brother whose life had ended recently, based upon their perception of time. He had been taken by his sister, after choosing to die at the hands of the Kindly ones upon growing to hate his role, but being unable to throw the universe into chaos, again, through his abdication. Desire, the domain of the being Harry had once been entirely unnerved by; it was the only one of _her_ family that Harry saw as truly being malicious. And Destiny, who Harry still feared: a man who saw everything that was, is, and would be, was not someone to be trifled with.

On Harry's abdomen, two simple symbols ran parallel to each other. The Algiz, a vertical straight line with two diagonal lines branching off three quarters of the way up its length, represented life. The inversion that sat next to it held the opposite meaning, telling of Death.

And then there were the functional symbols. On the back of each hand, and the underside of each forearm, was a marking that allowed him to channel magic. In the energy's raw form, Harry could command it without their help, and the skills he had learned subsequently were differently natured, but his first ability, that of the wand-wavers, needed something to be channelled _through_. Wands, in the case of Harry's first world. But thin pieces of wood were a poor choice for a weapon that one would stake their life on; _they_ had agreed with him on that, and this was the solution _she_ had offered.

On the back of his left hand there was a picture of a serpent, with scales all the colours of the rainbow, eating its own tail. A symbol of eternity, more than anything else, but also a sign of the cycle of life and death. Opposite sides of the same coin, and not something to lament over when one knew the fate of the dead. He was told that the next realm was a utopia, of sorts, that it was far closer to a kind realm than the one that they inhabited. But he would never see it.

On the right, an eye of Horus was etched. The black symbol came from _her_ , primarily; while the meanings of the rune weren't necessarily inappropriate, they weren't fundamental to his beliefs either. It could be argued that they didn't even fit, considering his actions in the past. He had not always been a _protector_ , more often than not he had been an executioner; nor had he ever welcomed _royal power_ , in the sense that Horus' eye intended, for the simple reason that a ruler's birth had no bearing on how worthy they were to lead; and good health was not something he had prioritised, even when he had been a protector, because life mattered more than limb.

Both of these symbols would shine through the flesh of his hand, when enough magic reached them. It had originally been intended as a warning; when Harry had first begun, his body could not handle the levels of magic that he now channelled, and he had lost fingers more than once, back then, to the smouldering heat of the energy.

On the reverse side to the eye of Horus, the veins and tendons of his wrist forming a pattern across the trunk, a burning tree was imaged. Only the edges of the white trunk had been blackened by the fire, despite the orange flames growing fiercer towards the crook of Harry's elbow, where the foliage sat. The fire licked slowly at the tree, currently; Harry's world was not in chaos at the moment, and the magic flowing beneath his skin was as minimal as it ever was.

And opposite that was a grim reaper's scythe. Harry had no idea where the myth of the skeletal figure with a massive instrument-of-death came from, nor did _they_ , but _she_ had taken it in stride. Each time his mission's end had happened to coincide with Halloween, a holiday _she_ adored, he'd found himself face to face with the very human imagining of Death. He'd also seen her dressed in the cloak outside of the holiday. Cosplay, she had called it. Doing it so often led her to accept the scythe as a symbol of her domain. Harry had a feeling that his reaction upon first seeing the guise had helped solidify her love for the outfit.

Huh. He'd forgotten that his first death had come on Halloween. Had that holiday held some particular meaning for him? Had it pushed him to embrace death, somehow?

The main difference, between his image and the typical imagining of the grim reaper, was the iron chain wrapped around the instrument's body. The platinum shine that came when Harry used any amount of magic, most likely, wouldn't fit either.

The symbols, as they had been explained to him years before, represented his overall purpose. Fire for chaos, and a tree for life. The first showed life, and the insanity of the typical being's existence; no mortal could take control of the universe in which they lived.

A chain for order, and a scythe for death. The second showed death, and the order that was to be found in dying and being free of this realm.

Maybe that meant the next life would be less chaotic. Maybe it showed the path that Harry walked, and that he rid this world of those seeking chaos. Or, maybe, it just showed the simplicity of the transition from life to death; without exception, eventually everyone went with _her_. Death took everyone, and only she had a choice in how things went at the end.

With a smirk, Harry vanished the hair around the sink and on the floor. His mind went back to the first time he had met a figure claiming to be death, and the disappointment he had had in the fight after it was all said and done. A personification, _she_ had called it. An avatar the people of a certain culture had dreamed up. It had no real power, was little more than the stuff of nightmares for the short-lived species, and had been a cruel _thing_. It had been an insult to her, to imply that she could be so pathetic and petty, and Harry had been livid. He had corrected the thing's mistake with a burst of Fiendfyre, and _she_ had taken it to the next life.

That said, there were genuine representations through the universes Harry had visited. Mostly, they were her own avatars, but some of them held enough power and enough independence that they had given Harry some trouble over the years. They were responsible for a few of the symbols on his back.

Between his shoulder blades, there was a patch of Harry's flesh that, on first glance, would appear to be coloured black. It wasn't, but, by this point, it might as well be. The first of the symbols, each of which was now minuscule and so near to the others that there was virtually no space between them, had been an angel. Back then, it had been large, and the weeping woman had sat, crying upon his upper back. Harry remembered that, yet he did not remember why he had been so sorrowful upon their first meeting.

It was probably better that he had forgotten, though. Whatever had caused his grief had also caused his death. It must have hurt.

Maybe it explained the hellfire that had singed one of the pictures _she_ kept for him. Reminders of people he no longer knew, placed to satisfy the childlike need to keep mementos of whomever they were.

Harry put the desire to reminisce further out of his mind, and stepped into the stand-alone shower this bathroom contained. He relished the feel of hot water, as it washed away months of grime and muck and blood. It had been some time since he'd been allowed the chance to wash, and even then it had been in a frigid river after a long, arduous fight. He had been extremely uncomfortable then, unlike now.

So far, this world was on the more pleasant end of the spectrum, compared to those he had been tossed into. He found it shocking that there would be something here that _he_ needed to deal with, and wondered what apocalyptic event would need to be prevented as hot water poured onto his newly-bare face. And how did involve Supergirl?

Kara stretched like a cat, as she woke in a warm bed with a small, peaceful smile on her face. It took her a few moments to realise that she had not fallen asleep in a bed, and the young superheroine sat up rubbing her eyes, confused.

She realised that it was Barbara's room, where she had spent much time in the past, and yawned. Wondering why she was tired, the blonde Kryptonian thought to the night before. She didn't remember falling asleep, but the last time she had looked at the clock it had been nearly three in the morning, and most of the Leaguers had left after a conversation she hadn't been privy to in one of the many rooms Batman had in his mansion. On another day, Kara definitely would have listened in, and probably would have been scolded for doing so. But her friend was hurt, and she just wanted to know that Barbara was okay.

After the others had gone, Wonder Woman giving Kara a tight hug goodbye, Flash giving a super-quick wave, and J'onn and John nodding their farewells, Batman and Superman had stayed awake with Kara. Batman, his mask down and the brooding face of Bruce Wayne revealed, didn't _say_ he was worried about Barbara but Kara would bet her cape that that was why he was there, and why he probably stayed there long after Kara had passed out.

Clark, though, had been worried about Kara. She had only given a brief retelling of what had happened, but Clark had felt the effects of the Thanagarian weapons himself; he was looking for side effects of that, as well as trying to decide how to alleviate her distress. It didn't help that Alfred had assured her that Babs was fine; Kara had been certain she would be unable to sleep. And Bats were nocturnal, so it made little difference to Bruce Wayne to sit up all night until either some crime happened in Gotham, or Barbara woke up.

As Kara spun her legs to hang off the side of the bed, she saw her cousin occupying the too-small chair in the corner of Barbara's room in the mansion. Barbara didn't always stay here, unlike Tim or Bruce, because she had her father's place and the dorm at her school, but there were plenty of rooms going spare and Batman had given her this one without a second thought.

Kara giggled at seeing Clark with his mouth open and drool on his cheek, head resting on the wall behind him and on his shoulder. He was a goofball sometimes, but Kara smiled softly when she realised he must have carried her up here after she's fallen asleep on the couch. Goofball or not, she had a great cousin.

She tiptoed to the door, opened it, and stepped out quietly. When she was there, Kara slapped herself on the forehead, realising that she could have floated over and not made any noise at all, and decided to continue in the air.

She brushed her hands down the front of her creased white shirt, checking that she was still fully dressed in case she ran into Tim, and floated down the hall. She soon reached the stairs, drifted down them, and found her way to the living room missing the wall to the outside world. Kara landed in front of the grandfather clock that hid the Batcave, and prodded it.

How did they open this? She couldn't remember.

Kara nudged the side, and ran her hands over each. She couldn't find a secret handle, and there didn't seem to be one on top either.

'Open?' She asked, feeling silly as she spoke to a clock. 'Open sesame?'

Nothing happened, and Kara frowned, thinking.

'Please open? Show meee the Batcave! Stop blocking my path, before I vanquish thee! _**I'm BATMAN**_!' Kara frowned, trying again and again. She thought her impression had been uncanny, but the clock seemed to disagree. 'Open for me, for Gotham is in peril!' she exclaimed, with her arms raised in an approximate impression of a bat's wings.

The clock swung away from the wall behind it.

'Ha! I knew I'd get i… oh, hello Alfred.'

'Miss Kent,' the aging Butler smiled, his expression one of slight amusement but his butler teachings (or maybe it was just because he was English) preventing any laughter, 'would you like to come inside? Miss Barbara is awake, and found much amusement at your attempts at ingress.'

Kara reddened, as her super-sensitive hearing caught the echoing sounds of Barbara's laughter. It figured that Batman would have something monitoring the entrances to his cave. She nodded, and squeezed through the entrance as Alfred held the clock-door open.

Kara hurried down the winding steps, and quickly saw Barbara sitting up in her bed with a grin on her face. Kara's was still red, yet she returned the grin in full force upon seeing her friend was well.

That broad smile faded slightly when she felt a pair of eyes glaring at her, and she turned to find that they belonged to Bruce Wayne. He heard her impression… Kara gulped, and gave a wave she hoped was sufficiently apologetic. Bruce glared at her for a few moments. Then, his lips quirked and he gave a small smile that made Kara relax visibly and audibly. Then, she felt indignation; even Batman was messing with her today. _What gives_?! She felt like asking, but decided it was more important to rush to Barbara's side.

'Babs!' Kara yelled, reaching her friend's bedside in a blur of speed.

'Kar!' Barbara exclaimed in return, jumping, as she did, from her friend's movement.

Kara looked her friend over, and asked, 'Are you good?'

'I'm fine. Alfred and grumpy-pants won't let me up yet. They think that I need more tests, as though none of them got zapped by whatever that was!'

'Well, they are tougher than… no, no, you're right!' Kara changed her tune, when Barbara glared at her, 'How dare they, when you are clearly fine!' Kara nodded once, a clearly fake expression of fury on her face. 'It is outrageous!'

'Oh, shut up,' Barbara grumbled with a smirk, 'but, seriously, he got a lot worse than me, and he gets to be up and about!' She pointed at Bruce's back, where the man was tapping away at his keyboard. Kara idly wondered if Batman had gotten any sleep at all. Probably not.

'And he is far more accustomed to being electrocuted and blown up than you are,' Alfred admonished Bruce's back, only to be ignored, 'and be glad of it. Your case seems not to have been too serious, but it wasn't simple electricity that knocked you unconscious. We need to be sure that you will not suddenly be caught by aftershocks before you can go gallivanting elsewhere.'

'I just want to go upstairs!' Barbara complained.

'And what happened last time I fell for that?'

'...'

'What happened?' Kara asked. Barbara still didn't answer, so Alfred turned to Kara with an exasperated expression.

'She tracked down Penguin and a group of his thugs, and got into a fight with a dozen full-grown men with a broken arm. Master Bruce had to-'

'I was doing fine! He didn't need to come!'

'As I was saying, Master Bruce had to track their location without any time to prepare and join her in the fight. Had we not just recently upgraded his cape, I dread to think what might have happened.'

'It wasn't a big deal!'

'They had Rocket-launchers,' Batman said, from his place at the computer-wall, 'with packed explosives custom-made for bank-vaults. We were incredibly lucky that my cape stood up to that punishment.'

'It was a _test_! You're always saying not to trust gadgets until they've been thoroughly tested in the field!'

'After extensive testing in here,' Batman corrected. 'It isn't a test to place them against their highest-possible specifications before ensuring they can even deflect bullets.'

'Well yeah, but-' whatever well-reasoned argument Barbara would have given next was interrupted by Kara's cousin's voice.

'Bruce,' Clark said, calmly. A screen popped up, detecting his voice or something, and Batman reached out a finger and pressed a specific button, followed by another, and the clock popped open at the top of the stairs.

'Wait, so you could have just done that?! Why did you let me keep guessing passwords?!'

'I assume you want a reason beyond "it was funny"?' Bruce asked, his voice deadpan as ever, without turning from the screen.

'That's-' another interruption came, this time from Barbara as the girl slapped a hand to the side of her head.

'Crap!' She exclaimed.

'Language.' Alfred admonished, softly. Barbara ignored him, and shot to her feet.

'My dad! He must be worried sick! I need to call him, or he'll think I'm- I'm in the hospital! Or the _morgue_!'

'Calm down,' Bruce still didn't turn around, focussing on the screen directly in front of him and the clicking of his fingers on the keys, 'I've contacted your father, and he believes you are fine. I told him that the cell-tower near Smallville was knocked down in the invasion, and that the land lines are acting up so you might not be able to talk to him again for some time.' Bruce reassured, in one of the longest strings of words Kara had heard him use outside of his public appearances as the billionaire-playboy.

'Oh… okay. Wait, but how did you explain the fact that _you_ were calling? Did you say you were Mr Kent?'

'I wasn't the one calling,' Bruce corrected. All four of them, Clark now walking towards the bed, looked at him with puzzled expressions that Bruce should not have been able to see. But, then, he _is_ _**Batman**_.

'I don't understand…' Barbara said, as Bruce reached out and tapped a button on the console.

' _Hi, Dad,_ ' Barbara's voice came out of nowhere, or out of the speakers,, ' _I just wanted to let you know I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about, but the cell towers around here were damaged by the Thanagarians, and the landlines in Smallville are kinda awful. I might not be able to talk again for a little while, but I'll see you soon! Kara's uncle says he needs to come up to Gotham soon anyway, so he'll give us a lift back! No need to worry about the flights being down! Love ya, see you soon!_ '

'What… I didn't…' Barbara's mouth was open, gobsmacked, as she stared at the computer.

'It wasn't difficult to configure the sound waves transmitted to match your voice. There are slight differences that could be detected should it be run through some state-of-the-art software, but that can be explained away by the poor quality of Smallville's phones and the fact that they are needing to be directed to avoid downed wires.' Batman continued to tap away at the keyboard.

'I… what the hell?! That's such a… an invasion of privacy!'

'I know nothing more about you than I did before,' Batman said, 'how is it an invasion of privacy?'

'It's… you misled my father! You shouldn't have done that!'

'It isn't the first time I've misled your father; misleading him is a vital part of my life. But it is the only time I've done this, and I would have rathered not to. You said yourself, though, that he would have been panicking if you hadn't checked in. You were in no condition to do so, and this was the only available course of action to alleviate his concern.' Batman stopped typing for a moment. 'But, if it helps, it is not something I can do easily. It took me more than three hours to configure each syllable to the correct decibel and frequency. I don't know if you're worried about me doing this repeatedly, but I give you my word I won't unless it is necessary.'

'You mean if _you_ _deem_ it necessary, right?' Barbara snorted.

'Yes.' Batman agreed, simply, and Kara's eyes bounced back to her friend, having followed the conversation nervously. Nobody liked being around their friend's house when a familial row was on the table, and being superheroes didn't make this any more comfortable. Kara could tell Clark felt the same when, after a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat.

'What are you working on, Bruce?' Her cousin asked his friend.

Batman didn't seem especially thankful for the change of subject, but Kara could rarely detect any emotion in his voice. He could have been delighted, and she couldn't tell; all Kara knew was that she _was_ happy for the distraction.

'Identifying the magic-user.' Bruce said. Kara perked up at that; a conversation she could be involved in definitely made her more comfortable.

'The one from yesterday? In Smallville?'

'Yes.' Bruce gave a curt answer. Kara pouted, taking that to mean he didn't want her help, as her cousin asked the obvious question.

'Any luck?' Kara noticed Alfred shake his head, knowing Batman better than anyone, in a prediction of his answer. Maybe the butler could hear disappointment or frustration in Batman's voice...

'None. He doesn't seem to be in any database. Nothing is coming from the international intelligence agencies, I've already ruled out national and regional ranging from criminal to psychiatric to the dmv.'

'Nothing?' Clark asked.

'None so far, and I don't expect we'll find any.'

'Why do you say that?'

'There's no record of him passing through _any_ airport,' Bruce's voice gave a tiny hint of frustration. That told of how annoyed he was, in Kara's eyes; it was the equivalent of a normal person starting to throw things, 'and Canada's records are at least as efficient as ours, only with the added benefit of having roughly a tenth of the population. I've scanned all their databases, and found no record of his existence.'

'Well, then, he must have come from the south. Mexico, or central America. Or he passed through them from South America?' Clark was having trouble understanding his friend's frustration.

'I checked the border, of course, but,' Batman pressed a key, and the largest screen sprang into life with a picture of the man from the day before on it, 'does he look like he's been in Mexico recently?'

Kara saw his point. She hadn't noticed yesterday… but _wow_ was he pale. Deathly pale. Like he hadn't seen the sun for years. It really stood out against the pitch black tattoos he had. Whereas his eyes didn't stand out. They weren't so _vivid_ on the screen as they had been in real life.

Kara found she was disappointed. His eyes had been awesome.

'No… I guess not,' Clark frowned, 'but what about those tattoos? Surely they're trackable?'

'They wouldn't be, even if they were tattoos.' With the tap of another key, the screen zoomed in onto the tattoo on the unkempt man's left pec. Kara couldn't remember what the name of it was, but it looked like a cross with a handle.

'Huh?' was a rough representation of the noise Kara made, 'What do you mean _if_? What else could they be?'

'I don't know,' this time, Kara actually _heard_ the frustration Batman felt, 'but they aren't tattoos. They are reflecting _no_ light. Nor absorbing it; if it was dark enough ink, that would be possible, even if a _complete_ lack of reflection would be impossible. But it doesn't even absorb it. It's like that portion of him is made of Dark Matter. Which _is_ impossible.'

'Why?' Clark asked, as confused as Kara.

'Dark Matter… how do I explain this… it _isn't_ matter. It's something else, and we don't know what that is. Heat doesn't affect it, neither does light, and that means it disobeys the laws of physics that the rest of the universe has to obey. But, that doesn't mean much, since Dark Matter makes up far more of the Universe than regular matter. We just don't know how to detect it, and our understanding of it is limited at best.

'Hell, for all I know I could be wrong about this. It could be that it's Dark Energy, not Dark Matter, that he's got as _tattoos_.' Bruce's voice was actually borderline _emotional_ by this point, and Clark was clearly trying to be supportive with the next thing he voiced.

'Dark Energy? That sounds promising!' His voice was falsely chipper, but Bruce didn't seem to realise as he spun in his chair with a slightly incredulous look on his face. Along with that, Batman also had bloodshot eyes and slight bags around his eyes to accompany the long, shallow gash running across his forehead.

'You've heard of Dark Energy? And not Dark Matter?'

'Uh… no, I've never heard of Dark Energy.'

'... then why do you think it sounds promising?' Batman asked. Kara, for some strange reason, noticed that both were still wearing their uniforms. Her cousin didn't live here, so might not have had the option, but Batman must have chosen to stay down here instead of going to change into civilian clothes.

'Well… he's a magician? They manipulate energy, don't they?'

'They… do,' Bruce agreed, 'but Dark Energy is more complicated than that.'

'Is it important, though?' Kara asked. She and Clark were significantly more intelligent than the average human, but science was not something she enjoyed. Nor did her cousin, for that matter; human sciences, and just about everything else intellectual, weren't _quite_ compatible with them. The more complicated theories just didn't seem to compute with her. For that reason, she'd not pick a science-course _if_ she went to College; Clark seemed to think her going would be a bad idea, anyway.

'No. Since they aren't tattoos, there's very little chance of identifying them. That said, I've sent this image, and those that captured his back, to a few magic-users that I know. They might be able to provide some information on the topic. Until then, patience is key.'

A dull noise came from the computer. A _dong_ where Kara would have thought there would be a _ding_.

'The international databases came back negative. I'll cast a larger net, but don't expect that I'll find any record of his existence before yesterday. He seems to have spontaneously appeared with the Thanagarians.' Batman's tone made it quite clear that he was done with the conversation and, even if it had not, that he went back to tapping keys on the keyboard before him helped punctuate the point nicely.

'You seem to be fine, Miss Barbara,' Alfred suddenly spoke, having been a still observer before. The butler was looking at the phone in his hand, and looked up to continue, 'would you like me to… Miss Barbara?'

She was heading for the stairs already, and Kara followed without a thought; she was quite happy at the thought of getting out of here, too. It was gloomy in the BatCave.

'I'll keep an eye out in Metropolis,' her cousin told Batman.

'Be careful,' Batman warned, and Kara paid attention, 'he uses magic, and even without a disguise he could look very different by now. All it would take it a haircut and shave, and he would be nearly unrecognisable so long as he wore a shirt.'

'Do you think he's an enemy?' Clark asked Bruce. It took the brooding man a moment to answer, during which time he must have considered the question carefully. Kara heard his fingers on the keys, as he gave an answer.

'I don't think he's an ally.'


	4. Reporters, Bombs, and Monkey Suits

**I'd intended to get this published sooner, but things have conspired against me. Nothing serious, just longer shifts at work than I was expecting, and (also unexpected) familial and social obligations. To be honest, I didn't think it'd been as long as it has since I published the first three chapters, and it should definitely be less time than that until I next update this. I intend to publish another story on Wednesday, and I am free again at the weekend to post the next chapter of Life and Death, Chaos and Order.**

Harry felt uncomfortable dressed like this. Not because of the judgemental looks he received, of course; he wouldn't have cared about that even if he had picked this style for the fashion and not to hide his markings, but because of the constriction. Sleeves restricted his range of movement, even if it was a slight difference he didn't like to give a potential enemy even a single advantage. Gloves, too, he would avoid if possible; his hands did not get cold, but they did get confined by the leather currently encasing them.

Harry believed that, all in all, he would spot Supergirl if she encountered him. Harry would easily detect her, with his mind's eye open and scanning the area, but she hopefully wouldn't detect him. The sunglasses he was wearing would, most likely, help in that regard; his eyes would be a dead giveaway if visible.

Harry remembered her as having a petite figure. That was a bit of a hindrance to finding her should they be in a crowded area, but hopefully his height, above the average of this world, would be enough to counteract that, and the issue wasn't large; he'd only need to spot her after sensing her power. That should be easy enough.

He had altered his plan slightly, though, from what he'd been thinking in the morning. After the invasion, Harry felt that Supergirl would be needed in a city more than in the town of Smallville that had come out largely intact. Metropolis seemed to be in her area of operation, yet Gotham was suffering more than Superman's city. A coin flip, so Harry had stayed where he was. He'd found another hotel, preferring not to need a glamour whenever entering or exiting his temporary residence, only two streets away from the first.

So he was in a city where she may or may not have been, and had been walking around for three and a half hours. Patience was something Harry had in spades, he would be fine with strolling without a break for a day and a night if needs be, but it was seeming less and less like the skeletal plan was going to work.

And, just minutes after Harry had this thought, a solution presented itself. A far-from-perfect solution, but one that would do the job nonetheless.

He felt a blink on the edge of his psyche, and turned his mind's eye to read what had produced the spike of energy. It was easy enough to find, the pulsations were in intervals of five seconds, and illuminated the mouth of the alleyway with sinister light for Harry's mind-eye.

Harry checked the traffic, and crossed the road to the side of the street containing the alley with the source. He glanced at the buildings to each side, and found that one was a Thai-food takeaway, and the other a sky-scraping office building.

That was an odd layout, but Harry dismissed the strangeness as unimportant as he stepped into the alleyway and felt around the corners for the source of the energy.

He found it after nine seconds, the first pulsation taking him deeper into the alley but not giving a clear location. After the next pulse, Harry could place where the point of origin was, and let his mind's eye fall from the front of his mind as he looked at the shadowed area. He held a hand up, and a ball of light appeared on his palm.

And saw what was unmistakably a bomb, placed against the bottom corner of the skyscraper. Harry raised his empty left hand, and pointed a finger at the explosive device. It would be easy enough to vanish it, and that would stop any lives from being lost.

Harry let his hand drop to his side, and fished around inside the pockets of the dark jeans he wore. They were deeper than should be possible, a habitual spell that Harry had gotten into over the years, so it took him a few seconds to locate the mobile phone he'd bought earlier. A cheap, disposable item, but one that Harry had banked would come in handy. He'd been right, evidently.

His finger hovered over the button with the number 9 printed on it in white, and Harry wondered some more. What would be the number for emergency services? He cast his mind back, but found he hadn't heard any mention of it during the time he'd been in this world.

Americans… Harry closed his eyes, trying to remember what it had been last time he'd been in a modern land that called itself the United States, and found a vague memory. They'd had different numbers for departments, which Harry remembered thinking was unwise, but they'd all begun with nine, and followed it with a one. Either the police or the fire-service had been 9-1-1, the other being 9-1-2, and 9-1-3 through 9-1-5 being used by medical services, and two other things that Harry couldn't currently remember. Agencies of some kind, maybe.

So, Harry took a small gamble and dialled 9-1-1. It rang, and he waited.

'9-1-1, what is you emergency?'

'There's a bomb at the base of Alectic Industries building, at the back of the alley next to it. I think it's going to go off soon. Please hurry.'

Harry hung up, and the phone disintegrated in his hand as he ran a hand over his head. His body faded from view until it was near-invisible, and Harry repeated the process to remove the last remnants of himself from view. Superman supposedly had super-human senses, as well as strength and speed, so Harry removed his scent with another spell, and silenced his pulse, breath and footsteps. He leant against the wall and waited. If Superman didn't show up, Harry would vanish the bomb; the pulsations of energy were already speeding up, and he expected the device would blow when they became fast enough to be a continuous stream.

Then, he decided to err on the side of caution, and cast a low-level ward around the bomb to hold the explosion long enough for Harry to get rid of it and the area around it. The ward would allow someone to reach inside and retrieve what was held, though this was the first time Harry had seen a reason for that to happen, so Superman wouldn't be thwarted by it, or tipped off, should he come.

Harry felt a new source of energy in the sky, and looked up as a large man dressed in blue appeared above him. It had taken Superman twenty-three seconds to arrive on the scene, and Harry had to admit he was impressed. He had seen a video of Superman moving at superspeed, but it had just about been possible for Harry to keep track of his movements with his eyes while the man ran. The superhero must be faster in the sky than on land, then.

Superman quickly scooped up the bomb, not noticing Harry's ward, and stared at it. He didn't move, or try to dismantle the device. Just stared at it, as though contemplating what to do with it.

Harry didn't understand why Superman was doing whatever this was, but it gave him the perfect opportunity to act out the next stage of his plan. Harry pointed a finger at the Man of Steel's back, and focused his mind as he placed a spell on the blue material. It was difficult to remove the light that accompanied spells. Even for a simple spell like this one, it took all of Harry's concentration; had he been in any kind of rush, this wouldn't have been a viable option. But, as it was, the tracking spell with which Harry tagged Superman was invisible.

Superman straightened up, and turned around. Blue eyes scanned the alleyway, as though he had sensed Harry's action, but he found nothing. Superman shook his head and began to rise into the air, as though gravity was an afterthought for him. Harry felt mildly envious; he could defy gravity, but it was far from easy to learn and, even after hundreds of years, he had far from mastered the ability.

In the air, Harry had very little grace. It was irritating to see Superman performing flight with apparent ease.

Superman flew straight upwards, leaving a faint trail of energy for Harry's mind's eye to follow, at considerable speed. Then he stopped, and Harry saw the considerably weaker glow of the bomb sail into the air before Superman. The mile's distance made little difference to Harry, because there was nothing else approaching Superman's power in the vicinity, and so he caught the thin beam of energy, with the same signature as Superman, as it briefly connected the two sources.

The first sign that something was wrong, for most of the people in the area, came as as a fireball, and a ear-shattering _boom_. Or maybe the sound was greater to Harry than the rest; his ears were more sensitive than those of an ordinary person. Either way, he heard yells of panic because of the explosion. Then, they began to cheer. Harry's eyes recovered from the bright blast, and he saw Superman waving to the crowd below.

Was he showboating? Harry frowned, before realising that wasn't what Superman was doing. He was reassuring them that he had been involved, and that all was well. They would guess that he had saved the day, and be happy to know it. It would give them a story to tell in social situations.

Superman vanished, flying away quickly enough that a sonic _boom_ reached Harry's ears. So the man could break the sound barrier, Harry wondered if that was the upper limit of the Man of Steel. Time would tell, Harry shrugged.

Superman's route to this building hadn't been direct, and Harry had chosen to satiate his curiosity and check the crappy shack that the superhero had stopped by at first when it became evident he would stay at the Daily Planet for longer than a few minutes. There were nazi-symbols on the wall of the shack, and bookcases full of hate-propaganda. More importantly, though, was the recently-open book on bomb-building, and the workbench that still smelled of… fertiliser.

Harry wondered how Superman had found them so quickly, and wondered if it had something to do with his staring at the bomb for a while. No answers came to Harry's mind, so he left the building as he heard sirens in the distance.

It had only taken him a few minutes after that to get to Superman's location. It would have taken less, but the closest Harry had gotten to the building was six streets over. After appearing atop one of the apartment buildings in the area with a _pop_ , Harry had apparated across the rooftops until he was within fifty metres, and then _popped_ to the ground below in a secluded alleyway.

Now, he was standing before the Daily Planet, staring up at the globe atop the tall building with a frown on his face.

Something was bugging him about the name, and Harry was having trouble identifying what that was. He hadn't heard of it before coming to this world, newspapers were rare and he was sure he'd remember one with a building that had a massive bronze model-planet on its roof. So he must have heard of it since he arrived in this dimension.

Since he hadn't stopped to buy a paper at any time in the last day and a half, Harry felt it was safe to say that he had read their stories online during the night. But equally he had read blogs and solely online sources, as well as national and international papers. So what was had stood out about this one? Nothing he had consciously registered, but… something.

The stories had been pro-superman. That didn't stand out any, considering he was quite universally popular; negativity would have been far more significant, and Harry could remember the three instances of that he'd seen with far more clarity than the details of any of the Daily Planet's articles.

All of the stories had seemed genuine, so Harry wouldn't have paid attention to that.

Had they had extra detail, though? He frowned, thinking on the subject, and wondered how that was the case. The authors had seemed to know more than should be possible. As though they had some kind of source. Harry had another thought, and shook his head. No way Superman was giving a newspaper interviews. That was a ridiculous thought. No, it must have been something else.

Lane. Harry's eyes widened slightly.

She had written virtually every story on Superman that the Planet had, but there was something more. Other papers had mentioned her. The US times had mentioned that a recent close-shave of hers had been the thirtieth time Superman had saved her. And that was just of the times it had been recorded.

Did Superman have a human girlfriend? How would that work? Why would he take that risk? Why would he choose a human instead of a fellow superhuman? And why were they so obvious about it, if that was the case? Was the plan to hide in plain site, by having her write tales of his adventures?

 _Idiot_.

Harry shook his head, amazed that the woman was still alive. Had he been Lex Luthor, or any of Superman's other enemies, he would have made torturing the information of the Heroes' whereabouts out of Lois Lane, star reporter, his first move. If she was screaming in pain, and a trap was set, Superman would come barrelling inside.

It gave Harry an effective method of communicating with Superman, though, so he shouldn't complain. Hell, if the man lurked around her during the day it would be extremely easy to find him and have a chat. Or to set a trap for him, should that become necessary down the line.

Harry slipped off his gloves and sunglasses, tucking the first into his back pocket and folding the second into his shirt's collar.

He stepped up to the receptionist and gave a rough approximation of a grin. The woman, an aging half-asian woman, looked at Harry over horn-rimmed glasses with judgement in her eyes. Harry waited for her to speak first, but she didn't seem to want to. He cleared his throat, and spoke with a raspy voice. He hadn't held a conversation in quite some time, and each short rapport he'd had since arriving here had had an increasingly human voice come from his lips.

'Hi, please could you tell me where I might find a reporter with the last name Lane?' Harry asked, not remembering Lane's first name, though he believed it began with an L, too. Saying please seemed to have helped, and she stopped looking at him quite so unpleasantly.

'She is on the fourteenth floor, but you should know that she is quite busy at the moment.'

'Ah. Covering the invasion, you mean?' The woman nodded. 'Okay, I'll just leave my contact information with her. I don't think the info I have will be pressing enough to drop that.'

'Very well,' the receptionist looked back at the papers on her desk, and pointed a pen at the wall to Harry's left, 'the elevators are over there.'

'And where would I find the stairs?' Harry asked, not seeing them next to the lift as he would have expected. The woman looked up at him again, her expression slightly disbelieving.

'There,' She pointed to the right of the elevators, and a fat man moved out of the way to show Harry that the stairs had been near where he'd been looking, 'but, as I said, Ms Lane is on the fourteenth floor. I'd take the elevator if I were you.'

'Thanks for the advice, but I prefer the stairs.'

Harry noticed her head shake out of the corner of his eye, but felt no need to explain his dislike of lifts. His plethora of experiences had taught him that, if there was another option, it wasn't smart to confine oneself in a metal box. The one that stuck in his mind was nearly a millennia old, and had been somewhat traumatic for him. Waking up in a coffin, buried six feet under ground had been… interesting, one could say. Running out of air had added to the intrigue.

After entering the room, Harry stopped before the stairs and blinked. He pressed the heel of his left palm against his forehead, and tried to will away a headache. Had she been that annoying? To the point that it had somehow penetrated Harry's skull, and it felt like someone had stuffed a pipe-cleaner behind his eye? Then it passed, and Harry shook his head clear of cobwebs. He ignored it, and continued.

He took the stairs two at a time, his strong legs carrying him easily up flight after flight. Taking each step at a time felt odd now, too many times Harry had been rushing to beat a lift to the top, or to avoid whatever was chasing him, or catch whatever he was chasing. Going easy wasn't comfortable anymore.

Even so, it took him a few minutes to reach the fourteenth floor. The slight increase in magic flowing through Harry's blood reminded him of another job he had to do before the end of the day: it had been a week since his last hunting trip, and he'd benefit from a meal. The thought was actually appetising, as Harry realised they would have seasonings in the local restaurants; plain cooked food got boring quickly, and conjured food was bland and somewhat lacking in nutrition. But that was a less pressing matter than finding Lois Lane, and seeing what she knew.

Harry would be able to read her mind, and the woman would never have to know he was there. However, first he had to identify which reporter she was.

Harry stepped through the doorway to the den of bustling reporters, and found it was exactly as he'd expected. Stressful voices shouted over each other, deadlines being the cause for concern for the loudest of them, a man called Perry from what Harry could discern of the chaos, and assurances that they would be met being returned without conviction.

His eyes were drawn to the man in question, and found him to be ordinary. A middle aged man whose brown hair was beginning to show streaks of grey was standing in the doorway to one of few real offices. Harry quickly dismissed him as holding any importance; it seemed that the telling of news was the most pressing concern for him. He exuded nothing of being in the know about Superman.

'Kent!' Harry ignored the man's yell, and the subsequent berating words about Kent taking breaks, as he stepped aside, turning to present a smaller target, and watched an orange haired young man go barrelling past. The boy tripped on nothing, from what Harry could tell, and presented an interesting sight as he fell. Instead of trying to right himself, the young turned his body so that his back, and the back of his skull, met the floor in order to protect the camera in his grip. Odd. The instinct when falling was to throw one's arms out to try and stop any real damage; the ginger boy must have an inhuman attachment to the camera, then, Harry thought.

As the boy struggled to stand, a black haired woman rushed after him, and began yelling. She had some measure of concern in her voice, and Harry felt himself smile slightly; this place was interesting even if he, personally, preferred the peace and quiet solitude brought.

'Sorry, Lois,' the boy apologised, as Harry turned his focus elsewhere.

Harry's eyes swept the bullpen. He looked at the nameplates on top of each cubicle's desk. There were many, and a few were obstructed, but he quickly found the last name Lane, first name Lois, next to the desk of Clark Kent. Lois was the woman behind him, and Harry was about to turn when his eyes happened to find the large man sitting in Clark Kent's seat.

Clark stared back at Harry, a puzzled expression on his face.

And Harry wondered why, on Earth, Superman was sat in a room posing as a reporter and wearing a monkey suit and non-prescription glasses. Evidently, Harry's eyes showed that surprise, or maybe Clark spotted the uncovered symbol on the back of each of Harry's hands, because Superman's expression grew mildly panicked, and he mouthed an odd curse.

Harry wondered what _Great Scott_ meant, as Superman rose from his desk in a single, quick movement. That movement wasn't well thought out, and Harry watched as the desk in front of _Clark_ was knocked over, and with it Ms Lane's desk was sent tumbling to the floor as well. Both spilled their contents on the floor, and Superman jumped about a foot in the air as a fiery black haired woman began to yell. Her voice was louder than Perry's, by far.

'DAMMIT SMALLVILLE!' Lois roared, storming back over to her upturned desk as the rest of the reporters stopped what they were doing to watch with interest. As though they were looking forward to seeing him be torn a new one. 'Don't be so clumsy!' She continued, as though this was a common occurrence.

Huh. Apparently Ms Lane didn't know Superman and Clark Kent were one and the same. Harry doubted she would have been barking at the super-powered alien had she known, though who could say for sure? Perhaps that was the dynamic of their relationship.

Harry wondered how none of them seemed to see that this Kent fella was just superman in a too-small suit, glasses, and with his hair styled in a different way.

'Sorry, Lois,' Superman said sheepishly, and knelt to pick up the fallen items.

'No! No, you'll just break something else, let me.' Again, her rudeness seemed to include some fondness. Harry had a feeling that he would have been unable to understand the woman, had he needed to, as he watched her bend down to help pick up her and Clark's things

Superman looked up again, meeting Harry's eyes, and Harry saw confusion in them. As though _Clark_ didn't know how to act on this development. He'd already drawn attention, so it would be obvious if he was to leave and have a conversation with Harry. And, Harry suspected, he had a more pressing concern of whether or not Harry was there to pick a fight.

Harry gave superman a nod, and brought his hand to his eyes. He pressed his index and middle under each, and then pointed at Clark.

 _I see you_.

Harry slipped back through the door. He patted the camera-wielding teen on the shoulder on his way past and entered the staircase again. Harry closed his eyes, took a long breath, and his physical form flickered. The smell of burned-hair would be left behind, he could never figure out why, but it was far more subtle than either the _pop_ or _crack_ that invariably came from more conventional teleportation. And it was far less disruptive than his preferred method of travel; until the time called for it, Harry would keep that ability under his metaphorical hat.


	5. Kent

Clark Kent was not having a good day.

Even ignoring the fact that he had embarrassed himself in front of Lois, which was never fun, and that he had been unable to contact even a single potential member for the League with his workload, Clark's afternoon had been spent waiting for the magician to return to the Daily Planet.

The fact that he hadn't come back worried Clark even more. The stranger knew about Lois and Jimmy, and Clark couldn't think of an excuse for keeping them in sight for any longer than to go and get a meal after work. And neither had accepted that offer.

Hopefully Jimmy would be able to get to his watch if something happened, and Clark would be alerted before the magician did any harm, but Lois was a different matter. He didn't put it past her to willingly get kidnapped for the sake of a story and, anyway, had no way to warn her about the killer that might come after her as Clark. Were Superman to tell her about a new menace, she would decide to write a story on a topic Clark knew very little about He didn't _know_ that the magician was an enemy, but he wasn't going to gamble on the opposite being true.

Clark had spoken to the Leaguers, or the current members, at least, and between the lot of them a conclusion had been reached. To the dismay of Batman, who was growing more and more suspicious of the magician as he failed to find information on the man's identity, they would not gather in force against him. If he was an enemy, he seemed to have resources and/or brains enough that antagonising him would be inviting trouble- he had found out Superman's secret identity worryingly quickly, and they all had loved ones that needed to be watched over and protect- and if he was not an enemy already, behaving like he was could tip the scales and turn him into an antagonist.

Besides that, Clark didn't know the capabilities of this magician. But what he did know, were the capabilities of his own team- Diana was on Themyscira, and Shayera was God knows where- and of all those Clark could call upon, there was a simple conclusion to reach; if this magician became an enemy, there was a very real possibility that he knew their weaknesses. And those weaknesses almost all fell within the spectrum of what Clark had _seen_ him do. Or what he could reason, from what had been on the security footage at the time of the magician's arrival.

Clark Kent was intelligent, and he knew that his own vulnerability to magic was beyond any of that, but this was his problem. If the magician wanted him, then it was Superman he wanted. He didn't want to cause an unnecessary amount of pain or death, or he would have attacked at the Daily Planet, when there was a whole mess of people to use to his advantage. If the Magician knew Clark's weakness, then he would know that any simple spell would render him unconscious, and that was better than breaking the bones of The Flash, or cutting off Green Lantern's arm, or setting J'onn on fire, or… well, doing most anything to Batman.

When Clark brought these arguments up to his fellow members in a few days they, of course, had a multitude of objections and these would include the absence of teamwork, and the lack of faith in his teammates. For now, though, Superman had made up his mind.

That was why Clark was on the rooftop of the building across from Lois' apartment. He wasn't spying on her, just… keeping watch. And making sure to stay out of sight of her should Lois look out the window.

It had been quiet enough, so far, for Clark to zip away and deal with a few crimes. Luckily none of his antagonists had picked tonight to start something, and the muggings and purse-snatchings had been distractions rather than crimes that needed Superman's intervention.

He didn't like this. Waiting. Just _waiting_.

Harry had been happy to see that his prediction had been true. Superman was either searching for him, or keeping vigil over those he held dearest. And he wouldn't have left a fellow hero on guard duty, even if they knew his identity. That left his apartment empty, and allowed Harry to go through Mr Kent's things, to look for some clue where Supergirl might be.

Superman's life seemed rather… _boring_ , truth be told. Well, Clark Kent's life was boring. Superman spent every day saving people and fighting supervillains. Harry could attest that that kind of life was far from dull, but he would expect Superman to have something else.

Something for himself other than work clothes, a small television, a work desk, and a bed. His home, a slightly small apartment, suggested Clark had little to no life of his own.

Honestly, Harry had been expecting some kind of hidden mansion for the equivalent of a god amongst men. But that had been before he discovered Clark Kent had been working at the Daily Planet for over five years. That it wasn't a temporary blending in, but some kind of alternate identity.

Harry shook his head at the thought: why on earth would Superman have another identity? What could possibly be the point of it? Was it just the appeal of living the dull life of a human? Harry remembered wanting that for himself… once. A long time ago, but a thought he remembered with more clarity than most; a desire to be free of the life he was forced to endure. To be rid of conflict, and not have to worry about the lives of those he cared for.

But not anymore. Harry couldn't imagine it now, living without purpose other than to make ends meet by working for some faceless person or people that he would never encounter.

Take this Bruce Wayne, for example. The owner of the Daily Planet didn't seem to care about the company, let alone the employees; just another fat cat lining his pockets with money.

Although he can't have been very good at it, to have bought a newspaper company. Newspapers were dying, even Harry could see that. No, this Wayne inherited his money, and must have ignored whatever advisors usually weighed in on his decisions when he branched into Metropolis' news. Trying to prove his own worth, and failing miserably.

Harry growled at nothing, as the tickling inside his mind flared up again. It was uncomfortable, pestering, but not painful.

The trespassing wizard tapped on the television, frowning at the fact that it was an old-style set. Harry couldn't remember the name, but most of those he had glanced in shop windows and on the windows had been flat. Why would Superman have an old model, then, unless he was hiding something inside?

Harry pried the screen off the box, and hissed, pulling his hand away as a small shock bit his fingers. Harry sent a spell at the wire connecting the TV to the wall, and it was was cut clean through. He yanked the face off the contraption, and peered inside.

Harry muttered a swear word. He didn't see a reason that Superman would be hiding the wiring of a television _inside_ a television, though it would be an ingenious hiding place if the wires actually meant something. Maybe Superman just liked to be retro. Harry repaired the wire and set absently, and continued.

He looked inside the bathroom of Clark's flat, and found nothing of interest. It was clean, as was the rest of the apartment, but that didn't say anything in particular. If Harry was right, and Superman was hiding something, it made sense to be organised lest it be in plain view.

Next, Harry went through the small collection of books Superman had, flicking through each quickly and finding that none held anything other than pointless lessons on Journalism and farming. He briefly wondered why Superman had an interest in the latter subject, but didn't see any particular importance in it; most people had a hobby of some kind. If Superman was so desperate to be human he would want to emulate them in that aspect, too.

Discretion would be paramount for a Kryptonian to stay hidden in plain sight, Harry imagined. It wouldn't be difficult for someone who suspected Superman was Clark Kent to test the theory. Stabbing him with a pen or a needle would do the trick, even if hitting him with a chair or bottle or car would be much more fun.

That would be a solution for Harry to use if, one day, he needed to expose this strange identity of the superhero. It would put those he worked with in danger, but if it came to that Harry didn't imagine he would care.

Rifling through Superman's draws, Harry found the first indication of him knowing Supergirl. His suspicions had been a near certainty before, but it was nice to have proof that the two knew were connected. He peeled the photo from the frame, and looked on the back. Sometimes people wrote an annotation on the back to preserve the memories of an occasion, but this wasn't one of the times.

In the picture Supergirl looked younger, by a couple of years, than she had been when he'd encountered her. Sixteen or so, Harry would guess with his limited knowledge of Kryptonian life cycles.

He wondered how that worked; they seemed near-invulnerable to physical damage, but aging seemed to be at the same rate. Usually having powers meant a person was likely to have an increased life span… but maybe that only applied to humans; Harry's knowledge was largely confined to homosapiens, after all.

He paused in his search to consider that. There had been plenty of times that they did not call themselves humans, but Harry had just assumed that was a different development in language… maybe he had been incorrect. If some aliens shared the physical appearance of his kind, Harry might have been in their company for years and not registered the difference.

A few of those worlds had included a stronger innate power amongst those he met, too.

Huh.

He quickly realised it didn't matter, though it added to the questions he had for when he met with those holding his leash again. Moving on, Harry looked into the corner of the room, and frowned. Harry had initially dismissed the desk in the corner; it looked exactly as he would have expected. A small desktop computer was connected to a modern-ish thin screen, though nothing state of the art, and a white keyboard. Now, however, Harry saw something poking out from under the keyboard. It was the same shade of white as the keyboard, explaining why he had missed the piece of paper with a cursory glance.

Still, it annoyed Harry that he'd failed to spot it. He moved the keyboard aside, picked up the paper, and scanned the written words.

It was a letter, addressed to Clark's 'Ma and Pa'. Harry believed, based on his limited knowledge of rural American language, that farmers typically spoke in that way. Hillbillies too, maybe. But he wouldn't have been confident enough in his vague understanding of it to count on that- perhaps all of those in certain southern states used the same idiosyncrasies- were it not for the books on Clark's shelf and, more importantly, the query about how things were going on 'the farm' part way through the letter. Before that, Clark gave a brief update on his life and the way things were going, only referring to his work as Superman in vague terms. Harry wondered if his parents worried about him, and that was why he didn't give them more detail. Or maybe he was cautious about giving something away in a letter.

Then, Harry wondered why Superman would need to send a letter. He could zip over to Smallville in a few minutes to have a conversation, surely, so what was the point?

Harry shook his head and continued to read.

Clark went into more detail about his life as a reporter, writing fond words of Lois and Jimmy, in particular. Harry found the details to be mundane, that it gave no details that could be useful, and skimmed the section. Superman asked after his parents' health, expressing worry that Harry didn't share and so ignored, and about some others that Harry guessed were family friends, until a name jumped out at him. A paragraph was devoted to asking after a girl, his cousin, who was apparently growing restless about not graduating, yet, from High School. The letter didn't give more detail than that, and Harry didn't pay any mind to her social problems.

Kara. That was Supergirl's name.

"Is she settling in at the farm?" Superman had asked. Harry briefly wondered why he was asking that, the picture indicated she had been there for two years or more, unless she had been elsewhere between then and now. He decided that must have been the case, committed the thought to memory, and moved away from the subject, not sure how long he had until Superman would return. He didn't think that it would be any time soon, unless Harry had overestimated how much he cared for Miss Lane, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He should leave presently, then.

Harry looked for an envelope, found one, and hummed a vaguely annoyed note. No address.

He put it back where it had come from, put the letter back onto the desk, placed the keyboard back on top, and looked around the apartment. Nothing seemed out of place to him, he'd put everything back where it had come from, but it may be futile to try to hide the fact that he had been inside. Superman would know this space, and would be vigilant when he returned. It was entirely possible that he would sense that something was amiss.

Whether or not he would know _what_ caused this feeling was to be seen.

Kansas had a lot of farmland.

It likely would have taken a week or two to search them all, had Harry been without clues as to where the Kent Farm would be. But it was quite easy to narrow it down to a small-ish town. Not only had Harry seen Supergirl in Smallville originally, Lois Lane had referred to Superman, or Clark Kent, by the town's name.

It wasn't a huge leap to figure he would have grown up in the town.

And there were only a handful of farms in the town's borders, or on the outskirts. Several of them had shut down years ago, and others were struggling quite seriously. Harry dismissed them upon a glance; having a pair of Kryptonians as Farm Hands would give one an edge over the competition, after all.

The first of the remaining four, Harry had tried to stake out to get a feel for. After six hours, he'd decided he had no idea what to look for, and noted the sun was quite high in the sky. He'd gotten closer, and discovered it said Robinson's farm right there on the fence. That had made Harry's job easier, and he for the next farm he had simply turned invisible and walked up the driveway. It had belonged to a family called the Lunnets, and Harry had moved on to the next.

The nearest item of significance to the next farm was a graveyard, nearly a mile away. Very secluded, and the manifestation of Harry's idea of a farm, complete with an old red wooden barn next to a small-ish farmhouse. Invisible, the visiting wizard walked over to the fence, looking for a name. There didn't seem to be one, and he'd crooked an eyebrow at the difference before spotting a piece of wood lying in the grass at his feet. Crouching, he'd picked it up and turned the old shard of a plank over in his hands.

The words he found spelled _Kent Farm_ , and Harry'd nodded to himself as he placed it against the fence and, without thinking, placed a sticking charm on the wood.

That had been three days ago, now, and Harry had been sitting in a tree ever since.

He gave a yawn of boredom and the beginnings of weariness, making a mental note to check into a nicer hotel when it came time for him to get some sleep. Conjured or transfigured beds didn't feel as comfortable as the genuine article, at least when Harry created them. He didn't have the knack for that particular spell, for whatever reason. Maybe because he had spent most of his life just putting up with discomfort; summoning a mattress in the middle of the wilderness was a sure-fire way to give away his position.

He cracked his neck, receiving an annoyed squeak from the squirrel that was curled up atop his head, and scowled at the farm opposite.

Where was Kara Kent?

Yet another scan of the farm courtesy of Harry's inner eyes revealed that there were no beings of particular power inside. He only sensed an elderly couple, sitting at the table to have breakfast as they did every day a little after sunrise.

He had decided that Superman had been adopted by the pair- they moved with the beginnings of the stiffness of old-age, even when nobody was there to put on a show for, as far as they knew- and that they had not accompanied him to this planet. Not that they could have done, based on the dimensions of the ship-type object in their storm cellar; Superman must have been sent here alone, meaning the rumours about him being the last of his kind had _some_ truth to them. Or something approaching truth, since Supergirl proved them false.

Maybe he was mistaken, and she didn't live here. But if that was the case, Harry didn't know where to start. Maybe he would have to track down Batgirl, and see if she and Kara were bunking together. He had wondered upon first appearing whether the two were romantically linked; perhaps they were living together.

Harry would wait until the evening, before diverting from his current plan. He judged three and a half days to be the point that simply _waiting_ for something to happen became unforgivably foolish. Harry scrunched up his face as the needling that had been bothering him for the past days returned; an annoying sensation behind his eyes.

What was with that? Headaches didn't just _appear_ out of nowhere. Could he be getting ill? There was a first time for everything...

Harry waited, and nothing interesting happened. Mr and Mrs Kent were having trouble coping, and he wasn't surprised. It seemed the aging man was attempting to do everything himself. That didn't seem possible, and Harry was surprised that Superman and Supergirl were willing to leave them in the crapper like this.

Harry held his hand out, palm up, as the squirrel that had decided he was a friend scampered up the tree to store some more nuts in the bulging-hole in the trunk. Harry had filled part of the time he'd been sitting in the squirrel's tree by summoning nuts and acorns, as well as extending its storage space. Payment for the critter's hospitality. Numbers formed in white light above his palm, and told Harry the time.

19:00. Harry sighed, and dropped from his shared branch to the ground below. He knew that this was the wrong decision, but it was also the most effective method of locating her. One of the Kents would know Kara's location, and he wouldn't do them any harm. They wouldn't even remember that he'd been there after he altered their memories. But this still felt _iffy_.

Harry dismissed it as being his own dislike of messing with people's minds. He would be careful not to fuck up their heads any more than was necessary. Hopefully, they would accept his story and he'd be able to leave without even doing that much.

He walked quickly up the drive, avoiding the barn and the odd hexagonal object that was in there, and strolled to the house.

The door was as plain as the rest of it, and Harry almost felt nervous as he raised his hand, and rapped his knuckles against it. He couldn't put his finger on why, but this felt… wrong. He didn't do well with the mundane. In fact, Harry would be far more content if there was promise of a gruesome, violent and painful end at the end of the path, than a pair of farmers in a small town in rural America.

The door swung open, as Harry focused on appearing ordinary and unthreatening. That was why he was currently wearing a long-sleeved brown button-down shirt, blue jeans and boots. It was also why he had conjured a bunch of flowers, and tossed it on the ground next to the path. Maybe they'd spot it, maybe not. But it gave a certain sincerity to his performance.

Hopefully he was right, and these people dressed in dull-coloured plaid-patterns. He was not going to wear denim overalls, lest he come across as too eager to fill the role.

'Hello young man, how can I help you this evening?' the old man who answered asked, with a genial smile. Harry returned it as best he could, and answered the question in what was hopefully an unthreatening voice. The rasp had mostly gone now, and could feasibly caused by smoking at its current level.

'Hi,' Harry said, keeping the smile on his face and hoping he didn't look nervous. Maybe, if he did, it could be blamed on nerves of asking after a pretty girl, 'uh, I'm looking for Kara. Is she in?'

'She's visiting a friend at the moment, I'm afraid. What's this regarding?'

'I, uh, wanted to ask her something.' Harry said, running with the idea of conveying discomfort as nerves. 'D-Do you know when she's likely to be back?'

'Not for a week or so, I'm afraid. Until school starts back up.' the man smiled some more.

'Oh, right.' that surprised Harry, and he berated himself for not checking that. 'Do you know how I might contact her?' Harry should have posed as someone in an official capacity; a friend or potential suitor could wait a week or so but a lawyer or police officer could not.

'I think I have an address, if that will do?' the man helpfully offered. Maybe Harry wouldn't have to take the information from their minds; it was looking like it would be given to him. That was a good thing.

'That would be great,' Harry smiled again, genuinely this time.

'Just give me a moment,' the man nodded, and hobbled away off to the side. To a table or desk, Harry guessed.

The black haired wizard let out a mouthful of air, and ran a hand over his head. He was quite surprised that this was going smoothly, but he had no desire to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

A high-pitched noise dug into Harry's skull, and he raised a hand to his left ear, his head twisting back and forth as he looked for the source. There wasn't anything outside, so that meant…

Harry's head snapped back to look at the doorway, and he grinned at the sight that beheld him. On the other end of a double-barrel shotgun stood the male Kent, and the man had an expression of cool apathy towards the wizard as he let the threat go unsaid.

'You think we haven't learned to recognise your kind?' he asked, the barrel not wavering from Harry's torso. If the man fired, Harry's insides would be torn to shreds.

That was a big _if_ , though.

'My kind?' Harry asked, raising his hands into the surrendering position.

'Villains,' the man replied, 'now, what do you want with my niece?'

'But she's not your niece, is she?' Harry asked, his grin still in place. 'Unless you're a lot less human than you seem, that is. Or is she your niece in the same way that Clark is you son?'

The man's expression twitched, anger showing for a moment, and his finger tightened very slightly around the trigger of the shotgun.

'And, by the way, you've never met one of _my kind_.'

Harry's eyes flashed, and the old man gave a yell of fright as his gun encircled and tightened around his arms, reared its head, and gave him a glimpse of dripping fangs.

' _Scare him_ ,' Harry hissed, in a tongue the other man would have no hopes of understanding.

The snake's head, and the venomous fangs within, neared the man's head until they were centimetres from his left eye.

'Now, how about you answer me honestly? Where's Supergirl?'

'You'll have to kill me,' Clark Kent's father growled, paying attention to the snake more than its controller. Harry appreciated that; whatever Supergirl's importance, it was good that this bloke wouldn't give her up at a moment's notice. Harry ran a finger over the crook of his left elbow unconsciously; no symbols had appeared yet, and he found that disconcerting.

'Or I can have a look around inside,' Harry shrugged, 'maybe you weren't lying about the address being in there somewhere.'

'You _stay out of my house_.'

'Worried about your wife?' Harry asked, 'You can protect her easily enough. Just tell me where Supergirl is.' He was enjoying this. He shouldn't be enjoying this.

The man's lips formed a tight line, giving Harry his answer.

The old farmer rose into the air with a thought from Harry, and moved out of the doorway. The magic wielder walked through, right hand raised and sparks dancing over his knuckles.

Mrs Kent was standing inside, with a pistol in her hand. As she opened her mouth to say something, probably a threat, Harry's magic transfigured her weapon. The pigeon she was now holding gave a protesting squawk, and she gave her own startled noise and lost her grip on the bird. It flapped into the air, and straight into the ceiling. Pigeons weren't known to be smart, and Harry directed it to the doorway. As his attention was diverted, if only slightly, the woman ran at him, her fist clenched and swinging.

A jet of red light hit her in the chest, and she crumpled.

'MARTHA!' Martha's floating husband yelled, and began thrashing wildly.

Harry heard a _BOOM_ as something violently broke the sound barrier, and spun on the spot as the wall between he and the outside world _exploded_. A blue blur slammed into him, and Harry's world went dark as he crashed through the wall behind him.

That darkness only lasted for a moment, before Harry's consciousness returned with full force. However, he found that a moment was all it took for him to be in mid-air with an infuriated blue superhero grasping the front of his shirt and holding him aloft without apparent effort. Superman's fist was cocked back, and he looked about ready to kill Harry.

'How _dare_ you? What did she ever do to _you_?' Clark growled, as his eyes turned red. 'YOU- YOU!' Harry could guess what the Kryptonian was trying to convey, his mother's pulse would have slowed to a crawl as all her vitals mimicked death. As the fist raced towards his face, Harry panicked.

The jet of fire that was the result struck Superman in the face, and Harry was dropped to the floor as Superman screamed.

Harry's next spell sent Superman through a wall, shattering it but doing very little to harm the Kryptonian. Harry pushed magic into his ribs, and those that were piercing his left lung pulled themselves free. The flesh and bone repaired itself, and Harry sent healing energy into his left arm.

Damn, that had done some damage. Harry spat out a glob of blood, and four teeth with it, onto the floor as his right leg healed in turn. He wondered how much had been the wall and how much had been Superman's blow sending him through it.

' _Magic_ ,' Superman growled, appearing back in the hole in the wall with a look of hate on what remained of his face. Harry's eyes widened as energy shot from Superman's eyes, and he gave a yelp of surprise mixed with pain as something burned into his shoulder. Suddenly, Superman was in front of him, and Harry felt the man backhand him. And then he went flying into _another_ wall. This one was only dented by the impact, but that took his left shoulder out of commission for the moment, as well.

'Mother _fucker_ ,' Harry snarled. His magic flared, eager to kill the Kryptonian, and Harry was sorely tempted to do so. Then, something else caught his attention, 'you might want to look at your father.' he told Superman.

The blue-dressed man spun on the spot, as Harry struggled to his feet and mended his right shoulder enough to move his arm and hand, and saw what had happened upon Harry being rendered unconscious.

Mr Kent's eye had been torn from the socket, and a pair of puncture marks were on his throat, over the jugular.

'NO!' Superman screamed, and Harry _saw_ something snap in his attacker. Next, he felt the wall against his back and a hand gripping his throat. The hero's face was still burned beyond recognition. It was a fact that seemed to escape Clark's notice.

This was the time that Harry's life should have flashed before his eyes, as the twin dots of red shone in Superman's eyes.

Then the man went stiff as a board. Harry slid down the wall as Superman's arms snapped to his sides.

The twin beams of heat burned through the ceiling above Clark, and Harry swallowed a lump in his throat. Fuck… Superman's sanity was less of a sure thing than Harry had thought. It wasn't difficult to understand why this had happened, and in his shoes Harry would have been a lot worse, but… this was a lesson he needed to learn from.

'Note to self,' Harry said, popping his shoulder back into place as his magic began to heal the other wounds he had. He felt warmth dribble down his face, and grimaced; he hadn't realised that he'd gotten a head injury, 'be more careful about the spells I use on the families of Superheroes.' Harry stood unsteadily, and glanced at the older Kent male, whose name he hadn't heard yet. 'And use snakes that don't have venom,' he stumbled towards the only person in the room in any danger, and heard a creak.

'Oh… shit,' something up there felt like shitting on Harry some more, apparently. The house began to collapse, and Harry's head drooped. He closed his eyes, and his magic extended, grabbed each of the three, and tossed them out of the house and into the night's air a seconds before the house tumbled down. Harry scowled, as the debris crashed down around him.

Superman felt weightless, as his perspective of flight was altered. Despite the fury he felt at that moment, Kal-El would later think that it was interesting to be flying without control. He felt a little dizzy, in fact, and wondered if this was how Lois felt while he was carrying her. Then, he began to fall, and his mind went to his father and the life-threatening injuries Jonathan was already suffering.

Harry stumbled backwards and fell onto his arse as he apparated into the dark, and largely unfamiliar, field roughly where the three would fall. He pointed at each of the human Kents, and a cushioning charm was placed on both male and female pensioner.

Superman deserved the face full of mud he received, in Harry's mind.

The wizard felt a sharp pain in one of his feet, as not-quite-healed toes were pushed out of place, and hissed as he limped over to the unconscious old man. At least his hobble wasn't fake, unlike the man's decrepit-act.

He was unconscious now, the shock having done as much to him, but Harry placed a numbing charm, stronger than any anesthesia he's encountered, on his face to be safe.

' _Sano_ ,' Harry said, and a soft green glow enveloped his _patient_ , ' _Curare_ ,' combined they would heal the old man, rid him of the poison in his veins, and restore the lost eye. Harry wondered where the snake had gone, and had a moment of worry as he glanced towards the tree he'd recently vacated. His palm glowed a soft, light blue as he cast a minor ward around it. He quite liked that squirrel and would rather it not die.

It didn't take long until the man was back to full health, and Harry, after leaving it a moment longer to ensure no poison remained, pointed at him.

' _Enervate_.' The man's eyes flickered open, and Harry stepped away. He didn't want to get him riled up again.

Harry waited for a few seconds, until the old farmer sat up slowly, before speaking again.

'Apologies. This got out of hand, but I didn't ever mean to actually have you be bitten. There's no lasting damage, but I feel I have to say I am sorry because… well, it definitely hurt. Believe me, I'd know.' the man blinked, glared, and then his eyes found his unconscious wife and, beyond her, son.

'You sonofa-' He tried to rise, gasped, and his arm folded as he fell back onto the floor.

'You're going to be too weak to stand for seventeen to twenty-eight minutes…' Harry followed the man's gaze, and swore mentally again. 'But your wife's fine. Look.' He cast the same spell on her, and the woman groaned. She, unlike her husband, stood up without a problem. 'I just stunned her… I knocked her unconscious. There are no risks to her from the spell I used, I assure you.'

The man frowned in return.

'I would prefer you speak. The only reason I am making conversation with you is to prove to your… son that you are both intact before I release him from his bonds.'

'Why were you here?' the old man asked.

'Looking for Supergirl, Kara, because I believe her to be important. I have yet to be told why she matters but, by the look of things, I need to help her with something. Or protect her from something,' Harry explained, as well as he could in simple terms.

'Who are you?' Martha asked next.

'Harry Potter. Greetings,' he said. 'Your name's Martha, but I didn't catch his,' Harry pointed to the old farmer.

'Jonathan,' the old man introduced himself.

'Okay,' Harry walked over to Superman, and hesitated. He cast a levitation charm on the man, and continued, 'I intend to stay out of your line of sight because you are able to burn me with your eyes. See for yourself that they're perfectly fine. I see no reason to fight, and hope that you will agree if you just think for a moment.' Harry told the frozen superhero, and left him floating for thirty seconds.

Harry decided that half a minute was enough time for Superman to calm down, if he ever was going to, and dismantled the spell that was keeping the Kryptonian imprisoned. Superman only stumbled for a second before righting himself when his feet touched the ground, which Harry felt was impressive, and hurried over to his parents. For some reason he moved at a human pace, but seemed to be hurrying nonetheless.

Superman, close to his parents as though intending to shield them from any incoming attacks, stared into the distance, looking in the direction from which he'd been thrown. Harry waited for him to turn back around, and to say something to give a clue how he was feeling, and shifted his weight as the seconds dragged on into tens of seconds.

'You destroyed my home,' Superman said, with a sadness in his voice that Harry hadn't expected. Superman continued as Harry wondered about the emotion, 'I grew up here. It's why I feel like I belong on Earth.'

'Is that so,' Harry asked, without any particular inflection. Superman took that insincerity poorly, and glared at the wizard.

'Don't dismiss it.' Superman ordered, 'I've called this farm home since I arrived on this planet. It's my parents' entire life, and you razed it to the ground; it was like another member of the family.'

'Okay,' Harry said, still without any empathy for the man's plight. To him, a home was… shelter. A place to provide some meagre protection against the elements and those who were hunting you. Or a central location to operate from when he was the one doing the hunting, or the one manipulating the elements, 'if it's so upsetting to you, _here_.'

He waved a hand, and magic sung in his ears as it reached over to the house and plucked the ruins from the ground. They shifted and combined, rotated and floated into the correct position before their eyes, and Harry spoke again as the house farmhouse was returned to its previous, rickety condition.

'I'd like to remind you, however, that _you_ destroyed your house. You may have used me to do so, but you destroyed a load-bearing wall in your haste to attack me.' Harry told Superman, as the family in front of him stared at the house. They were surprisingly amazed by the spectacle, considering the lives they lived. Superman, especially, should have seen similar sights before; this was child's play compared to some of the things Harry had seen and survived and done. A _reparo_ , even one as powerful as Harry had just cast, was nothing more than wand magic.

As his magic stitched the house together again, Harry stiffened.

Something was coming.

Something _fast_.

Harry's magic wrapped around him, and extended into the air around. He'd just been beaten to a pulp, Harry wasn't going to underestimate the residents of this planet again any time soon.

At the same time, Harry's palms were alight with spells ready to attack any target he selected. One was a spell intended to cripple, the other to induce a sense of vertigo cranked up to eleven. Harry had seen people, under prolonged effect of the spell, expel organs through their mouths. It was not a pleasant way to go, he gathered.

Harry let them fly as the speeding lifeform arrived in the field. They flew fast and true, but, evidently, not fast enough. The sky was darkening, and the figure was moving too quickly for Harry to track, let alone get a bead on. Harry shot another spell, which split into three, and another and another. But he was just guessing at a location, and hoping he might be lucky enough for the speedster to cross paths with one of the spells intended to stick its feet to the floor.

No such luck, Harry realised, as he sensed the enemy behind him. Harry blasted magic into the air around, and heard a worried yell come from Mrs Kent.

Harry spun, and his hands came up ablaze with royal-purple light.

And then he was launched into the air by a super-strong hand behind him, and the magic only struck the ground. Harry noted that Superman was smart enough to shield his eyes, and that the Kryptonian's showing while under duress was not telling of his mind in ordinary fights. Of course, the action did nothing to protect him from the binding chains that exploded from the ground, but it was a smart move nonetheless. Harry's spell could have been explosive or burning or even just bright, and his arm would have protected him from long-lasting effects of the attack.

Superman had to try, though. He'd seen a few spells of Harry's, and knew something of what to expect where his speedster teammate did not. And, more importantly, Harry's spell would have struck the Flash directly had he not been stopped. It wouldn't have even hurt the _hero_ , but there was no way to know that. Between the spell hitting the Flash and the ground, the choice Kent made was a good one.

As the magical chains captured Superman, encasing him in nigh-unbreakable metal that would last for ten minutes or more, Harry failed to catch himself in the flight. He'd been taken off guard, and his gravity-defying ability wasn't a simple one to use.

Harry landed hard, and his bones protested as the air was knocked from his lungs. A red haze draped over Harry's vision, and his hand scalded the earth as he rose to his feet.

Not counting the time in which Superman had been paralysed, Harry counted five. Five chances he had had to kill the man, and five times he hadn't.

Why hadn't he? Was he growing _soft_? A voice whispered in the back of his mind, and the green burning in Harry's eyes was mirrored on the tips of his fingers as his other hand clenched around a rope of magic, and whipped it over head.

The Flash, the resident speedster of the Justice League, was a human. A human with incredible speed in all areas from what Harry could tell, ranging from reaction times to dealing punches, from dodging to the obvious ability of running at incredible speeds, but a human nonetheless. All humans were deeply flawed and those flaws included, in the Flash's case, being distracted by his friend's imprisonment.

Superman managed to yell something incoherent to Flash, pulling on the chains binding the larger man, before the blue-white rope of magic cracked across the speedster's shoulder and back. The Flash was quick, and surely would have been able to react in time had he been able to see the attack coming; Harry wondered how that worked, whether his reactions slowed when he wasn't running. Harry stopped wondering, as the red-dressed man collapsed without so much as a whisper reaching Harry's ears.

Harry didn't speak, as he raised his hand, but some quiet part of him was impressed to see that Superman's chains were straining as the Man of Steel struggled against them. Too little too late, though. Clark could have simply knocked Harry aside, or moved Flash away, or let the speeding man be bound, and they would be having a civil conversation right now. Instead, he had pissed on Harry's kindness _again_. Ignored the fact that Harry had not only spared his family when killing them would have been the sensible thing to do but, also, saved Jonathan's life. Despite the fact that Clark had broken half the bones in Harry's body and both of his parents had been threatening him with firearms minutes before.

No. Harry Potter was many things, but he was not of a forgiving nature; he was not accustomed to letting those live who would stab him in the back for his kindness.

If his mission was made more difficult because of the Kryptonian's death, so be it. He would tie Kara Kent up and throw her into another dimension, if needs be, to keep her safe from whatever was going on here. Her comfort wasn't paramount. Only her survival, and the vanquishing of whatever evil threatened her life.

The killing-curse illuminated the scene before Harry, the poison-green light radiating from his left palm, and Superman's expression turned frantic. He knew, somehow, what this spell would do.

Good, Harry thought. Clark was lucky that only he had to give his life today; if Harry was vindictive, the elderly couple watching with fear would have died first.

Harry felt the symbols over his body burn, and ignored them. He felt the clothes he was wearing catch alight, and snarled. Then, he ignored that, too; whatever message they were trying to convey, he did not care.

They had made him wait, so Harry would return the favour.

His hand shook, as the pain they were sending him increased. The world before his eyes blurred, and Harry's lips began to form words. An ancient tongue whose civilisation he had sent to their graves; one that had been said to bring forth miracles, and had granted more power to the speakers than even gods should wield.

His consciousness was bound to this plain only for so long as Harry spoke; he needed but a second to kill the Kryptonian.

They directed him. They had taken away his mortal life. But they would never take away his free will.

' _HARRY_!' _she_ yelled, voice ringing through his mind.

His lips stopped moving, and Harry Potter fell backwards. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

They would, eventually, tell him the _why_ behind their decision not to bring him to their dimension at this moment. It would be a source of pain when he woke, though. Alongside all else that had happened since arriving on this world.


	6. Clown

When Harry's eyes opened again, he was staring into darkness. He was bound to a table made of unfamiliar metal by chains of mystical origin, and lay there for half an hour before it occurred to him to escape.

Killing Clark Kent would have been a mistake. Harry had known that even at the time; known that everything would be much harder if Superman was to die at his hand.

But he hadn't cared.

Didn't care.

He still wanted the man dead, and that was a problem. Caring was a mistake, whether it was to become attached or to declare a vendetta. Harry did not know what his mission would be on this planet; they still had not deigned to visit him, but Superman was obviously involved. If he had not been absolutely vital, Harry would have been allowed to continue; they had only prevented a mistake twice before, in all the years Harry had been alive, and that showed him how grievous the error would have been.

But Harry still wanted Superman dead. An undeniable need-

No. Not undeniable. He had felt _undeniable_ needs before, and had ignored them more times than indulging. Harry's psyche was just… _off_ since arriving here. A side effect of being without direction, other than to track some alien girl for reasons he did not begin to understand.

That this process had lead to Harry facing an enemy who had beaten him, at least in the sense that Harry had sustained far more damage during the fight than Superman, was frustrating. That was the reason that Harry was directing his anger at Superman, surely.

Or… part of the reason.

'Mother _fucker_.' Harry spat into the darkness, as the chains unravelled around him.

He had felt this before. When he was just _starting_ , he had felt this way. This frustration, like an itch in the back of his mind.

He grunted as he stood, and ran a finger under each forearm, tracing the intricate brands that sat there. They were representative of _her_ , as much as of the nature of his role in the grand plan, and his anger was building towards she and her siblings.

 _Surely_ a family of all-powerful immortals could find a better way to tell him something than to place an annoying itch behind his eyes? Surely, when that failed, they could do something other than _shoving_ him off the edge and letting that tell him something was seriously wrong. Surely they could _tell_ him, instead of punishing Harry for not miraculously _knowing_ what was imminently going to go ass up on this shit hole of a planet without being told.

Because seeing the _future_ was something he fucking _excelled_ in. Even in his first life, Harry had known that fortune telling was either false or completely irrelevant to him.

Harry kicked the table he had been chained to, and it sailed away. It narrowly missed a glass case. Harry frowned.

A glass case?

He walked towards it after checking nobody was in the… very large room with him, and squinted. It was giving off a strange, bright light, and his eyes were accustomed to the darkness now.

Inside the case, there was a model-human. A mannequin? Was that the word? It wore the costume of one Robin, and Harry frowned.

Most likely, then, he was inside the Batman's hideout. The 'Batcave' according to those on the internet, though they knew nothing more about it that could be considered even partially true; Harry had heard that it was located in the bay, because Batman had been seen jumping into the water by some anonymous Gotham-citizen, never mind that this was reportedly after a drowning woman, or that it was actually in the sky and that Batman would fly up to it each night to sleep through the day. Harry had moved away from that corner of the internet when he found a community of people insisting that Batman's cave was an underground city in which all the government's officials had a second home for the day that the bombs began to fall.

But what had happened to the Robin costume?

It was burned, tattered, and dusty. The dust likely came from disuse, but the burns were serious. Harry didn't see how someone could have survived the blast, had they been wearing it…

Ah.

Robin Number 2's costume, then. Harry remembered reading about that, but it had been overshadowed by some of the more heinous acts of its perpetrator.

The Joker was a truly evil bastard.

Harry inhaled suddenly, as a sharp sensation ran down his spine.

What was that?

He braced himself against the glass case, and pressed a hand against the back of his neck. That sign was… new. He'd never felt one be so strong. Maybe she'd sensed his annoyance at their ridiculous subtlety.

The meaning occurred to him quickly enough, and Harry whispered into the darkness around him.

'The Joker?' His spine tingled, 'I'm to kill the Clown?' He asked of the invisible force answering his questions. Nothing came, so he frowned. 'Does he have a plot that I need to thwart?' He asked again and, again, received no answer.

It must have been a one-time courtesy, then. Harry shook his head, and glanced down at his arm out of reflex, looking for a symbol to confirm that the Joker was his target.

Something was definitely there, and Harry turned so that the glum light from Batman's case landed inside his elbow. He made a noise of agreement, nodding at the same time. That was more or less what he expected.

He chose to believe the shield meant Supergirl. He wasn't going to kill Superman but he didn't feel the need to look out for the man, either. The confirmation that Supergirl was vital just meant he needed to seek continue on his current course; finding her and attempting to understand why, specifically, she was so important.

And the pale, red lipped, grinning face looking up at Harry confirmed his other suspicion. A newer certainty, but a concern he'd had since researching the world of there being such a deranged person on this planet. The Joker had been a worry since Harry first read of him, the number of deaths the Clown had caused were in the thousands and would inevitably reach the millions, or more, if he was allowed to continue. Harry had met men like him before, madmen with a single-minded thirst, and their tastes invariably escalated. The clown had taken an entire city hostage before. When his escalated, Harry dread to think what the plots would evolve to.

The solution was simple; Harry would deal with him before one of his plots could _successfully_ kill millions in one fell swoop. As it was currently, the only thing that thwarted these plots was a man who dressed as a bat and fought crime. Fought crime well, clearly, but was hardly suited to the job. Harry supposed that, with the Justice league on the case, the Joker would be stopped nine-hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand.

The one they would not stop was the worry, and a man as insane as the Joker would not stop at one-thousand attempts. He would continue until he satisfied whatever sadistic thirst was inside his deranged mind. The Justice League dealt with the threats of aliens and monsters that could obliterate the Earth if left unchallenged. If the clown chose to act out while one of those scenarios were in full swing, it would be up to Gotham PD to stop him.

That was concerning. The officer who had swallowed his gun had, by a large margin, come closer to managing that than any of the others.

Harry suspected the incompetence of the Police Department stemmed from the corruption of many of their number; those who were honest could not rely on their partners and their job was next to impossible as a result. More often than not, the honest died in the line of duty, likely because of that fact, and only those who were cowardly and corrupt were allowed to live long enough to climb the ladder and snatch promotions. That they ran the Police force in the vast majority of situations, as a result, made matters worse.

Harry believed that Gotham PD was too rotten to be saved. Perhaps those uncorrupt could begin anew; perhaps not. At some point the institution would collapse, Harry was sure.

Harry looked at the encased costume again, and shook his head silently. He did not understand the Bat, and wasn't sure if he wanted to.

Harry wondered how the man would react to what happened next, whether he would be infuriated by the murder of one of his villains. Then, Harry twisted on the spot. A crack echoed in the cave, and the bats sleeping above panicked.

The swarming cloud went unnoticed; the cave would be empty for quite some time, with the home's owner on the hunt and his oldest friend sitting by Barbara's bedside in lieu of her father.

Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth was a calm man. In his youth, the aging Englishman had been raucous and undisciplined, but that had been beaten out of him upon joining the army. His DSgt, or Drill instructor, had seen something in the angry youth and had nurtured it in his own way. His way was not pleasant, but Alfred's resent for the man named Smith had been short-lived

Quickly, Alfred's talent shone through and he had been promoted thrice in ten months. That was a feat almost unheard of, and retrospectively Alfred understood that the copious amounts of praise he received had been yet another test of his character. The SAS had no need of arrogance; arrogance was the bane of focus, and most often gave birth to rashness and an inability to follow orders. He had not shown the trait, instead demonstrating determination to better himself and prove the praise justified, and had eventually been taken into the Special Air Service.

Alfred's training, even without the daunting physical aspect, had been invaluable. He had learned to master himself, and his self-control became just-about unparalleled.

Unparalleled, that is, until his young master Bruce had returned from the incredible journey of learning and training that had kept him away from Gotham. Bruce Wayne had mastered the physical and mental aspects of life to a greater degree than anybody Alfred had met; he had devoted every fibre of his being to becoming Batman, and to honouring the memory of his parents by fighting the crimes that had turned their legacy sour.

Yet, as Alfred looked at the bruised, peaceful face of Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne's mentor, guardian and friend was worried.

He did not worry whether or not Bruce would survive. Alfred knew that Batman would be the death of Thomas Wayne's son, Bruce would not stop until his crusade killed him, but that was not what was playing on the aging Butler's mind. Batman would not die tonight, he was somehow certain. Only Bruce Wayne.

He worried that this might be the final straw.

That the clown had pushed Bruce to the point that even his self-restraint would not survive.

That Bruce would take the Joker's life tonight.

Alfred sighed, as he brushed a strand of hair away from Barbara's closed eye.

The retired soldier knew that he would kill the Clown, were he in Bruce's position. Alfred would have killed him years ago, in fact. The Joker had gone too far time and again, and too many had suffered because he was committed and allowed to escape and wreak havoc time and again. Even with Bruce's conviction that a life was not his to take, and that the Joker could be helped, Alfred would have killed the man…

The aging soldier grimaced. The Joker was no man, he would have killed the monster in a clown's skin years ago. When Jason had been the one on the receiving end of his sadism, Alfred would have killed him. Bruce had not; he had wanted to, Alfred had seen it in his every action, in every fibre of his being, but he had not let his anger get the better of him.

Maybe the same would be true tonight. Perhaps Batman would be stronger than Bruce Wayne… or Bruce Wayne's emotions. Perhaps, instead of the Joker losing his life tonight, another part of Bruce Wayne would die instead. And Alfred would continue to mourn the death of the happy child who had once been in his care.

Alfred sighed, looking at the lifeless face of the young woman with a sorrowful crease in his brow. He softly shook his head, looked to the window, and listened to the beating of the rain.

The retired soldier wondered what would happen, either way. He did not know whether it would be best for the Joker to die at Bruce's hands or not; if he lived past this night, Alfred doubted he would much longer. At the very least, when the Red Hood received the news…

Barbara Gordon was checked into hospital only a few hours earlier with a bullet in her spine and other injuries. The Joker had broken into the house of James Gordon and attacked his daughter before the man's eyes. He had taken the Commissioner and called in the crime himself. To alert Batman, most likely.

Harry did not know whether the Joker had motivations for this action, or if he was being as insane as always. Whether or not it was a part of some grand scheme, Harry had nothing invested in stopping this plot and, as a result, would not be distracted by personal matters or emotions.

That made it easy enough to discover the Clown's actions. Or, more accurately, not as difficult as most of Harry's work. None of the several steps it had taken had been overly complex or required any real effort.

The first criminal Harry had… interrogated had not known much. Even under duress that would have him in Arkham for a period, the man had known nothing more than having some associate who had once told him how unpleasant it had been to work with the Joker. Harry had gotten the man's name and his favourite haunt's location, and left the man shivering on the rooftop whispering to himself about sea serpents.

The first's friend, the second, had been drinking with buddies. When Harry had asked where he might find a member of the Joker's crew the man had eyed the sharp glinting hunting knife on Harry's hip and found that he was more afraid of the Joker than of the stranger with odd tattoos. He and his friends had attacked Harry, and his friends had all suffered for it. None were dead, but several were no doubt in hospital by now and would have many months of rehab to be able to walk, talk and fight again.

Then, the man had told Harry that he knew where one of the Joker's Lieutenants had lived, that the man had talked him back there once for a drink before he'd left the crew.

Harry had gone to the address given, and had found the man on a dirty mattress in the corner on top of a gagged, underage asian girl. Harry had stunned the girl as the man shot into the air and slammed into the ceiling. He let the man fall to the floor, drove his heel into cracked ribs to break them and got to work extracting information. The usual methods had not worked all that well; apparently the man's greatest fear was the Joker, so it did nothing to make him give up the Clown to pull the fears to the front of his mind and nurture them as one fed wood to a stove.

Breaking into the man's mind was an unsavory idea, especially with the activity that had been occupying his attention moments before- he detested mind reading at the best of times, this would be especially horrible. Harry had done many things unimaginable to the average person, but legilimency would force him to _feel_ what the man was doing to her- to an innocent. Harry knew himself well enough to say his magic would be uncontrollable after that, and that the victim of the bastard's desires would surely die too. And that was after Harry's mental dagger eviscerated the inside of the sicko fuck's skull.

And Harry's pain curse had a tendency to leave unremarkable people in a state not dissimilar to vegetation, so that had not been an option. Harry, instead, had had to use more traditional methods. He was in a rush, after all.

The henchman had given Harry the information he needed upon losing his nose on top of one foot, both ears, and a handful of teeth. Harry had broken the girl's restraints and left a timed _ennervate_ on her before apparating away. He did not imagine she would call for help for her captor/raper when she found him bound by ropes. Harry left a knife next to her bedding, as well as a bag of gold coins, and that would likely present a more appealing option. And hopefully taking the man's life would do something to help overcome the trauma.

The rain had washed the blood from the wizard's hands as Harry approached the gated entrance to the abandoned carnival where Gordon had apparently been taken. Harry shrugged off the zip-up sweatshirt he had been wearing, and the item vanished as he grasped the metal of the fence and began to climb. In a world where heroes could fly, he didn't know what methods of detecting them in the air the villains may have developed.

Harry pulled himself hand-over-hand and stopped at the top. He could easily be rid of the spikes on top if he so chose, but doing so would be unnecessary and would _potentially_ draw attention from the small person making rounds and heading towards Harry's position. Most likely the entire process would be over before the dwarf reached this point, but Harry would rather not take the risk. He didn't know the situation, and it would be better to avoid casualties other than the Joker if at all possible. Bodies drew attention or took time to hide.

Harry twisted one hand to reverse his grip, and renewed the drying charms on each palm to ensure he would not slip and impale himself.

Harry's forearms tensed as he raised both legs to run parallel to the ground. He stayed in that position for a moment, resembling a very odd flag in strong winds, and then continued the movement until his feet were directly above his head and well above the spikes as a result. He brought his lower hand, the left, towards his chest and so higher than the right. Then, he pulled the right to be higher again and lowered his torso slightly. His eyes, now, were in line with the spikes and Harry appreciated the sharpness of their points as his arms and upper back tensed.

The wizard threw himself up and over the top of the fence and into the air. Hanging in his uncontrolled flight, Harry took another scan of the area. Nothing had changed in the seconds he had taken, but for one thing.

The crowd watching what seemed to be a show with one man crouching in a cage with another energetic man dancing around had shrunk. Harry assumed that those on stage were Gordon and the Joker; that Gordon was in the too-small cage being tormented for whatever reason as the clown played it up for the audience. That was why he had not thought twice about the Joker pointing to the crowd that Harry had assumed were Henchmen.

But Harry had failed to take into account their emotions and the object that the Joker had in his hand. They were more afraid than the Commissioner, by far, and Harry had to rethink who they were.

The Joker had captives, and was shooting them dead one by one to torment the commissioner.

Harry didn't hear the gunshot, and wondered why the Joker would be using a silencer. That seemed unlike the Clown, but Harry did not know the man's mind. The Clown Prince of Crime seemed utterly unpredictable, and that was one of the things that made him dangerous.

Harry hit the ground in a jog.

He winced, as another of the crowd died, and turned the jog into a sprint.

Between the wizard and the crowd, there was a tent and a ring-toss stall. Harry cut a tall slit in the tent with a thought and was not slowed any by the stall as he vanished it with a thought. His earlier cautiousness was stupid in retrospect; he would have been better to tear through the fence and kill whoever might catch on. Or, better yet, to throw himself above the epicentre of the carnival and drop into the middle of the scene.

Harry heard laughter, and vaulted a bumper car as his hand flashed and a cutting curse tore open a slit in the purple tent ahead of him. His palm glowed with scarlet light as he reached the entrance, and burst through.

The Joker continued to cackle as the small-calibre gun was torn from his grip. Harry snarled, a second spell following the first as the Joker pulled another handgun from his waist and brought it to bear on the crowd. The gun flew into the air, and Harry held out a hand. It flew to him, and he raised it as the Clown reached for yet another gun on the floor.

Harry's hand squeezed the trigger.

And the shot tore a small hole in the tent's highest spot as he was thrown aside by a white blur. The bench he landed on, upper-left arm first, shattered and Harry swore.

'YOU BASTARD!' A girl screamed.

Harry cringed as his shoulder popped back into place, and quickly rose to his feet with the gun still in hand. But he didn't make any attempt to fire it, as he watched the situation with interest.

Even in the grip of an infuriated Kryptonian, with the red-glow of her burning eyes lighting up his face, the Joker was roaring with laughter.

'Even better!' Joker continued some thought with a raspy voice, 'The Bat and Big Blue brought down by little old me!'

Harry didn't understand that and, based on the fact that the red light died, Supergirl did not seem to have any more idea.

'What about Superman?!' she demanded in a voice that was still full of contempt but also some worry.

'Huhuhu,' Joker gave a choked laugh, 'if I can't break him with fun, there's always poison!' The clown raised his hand, and revealed a tiny device with a red button on top.

Supergirl did not react as quickly as Harry, and Joker's hand fell to the floor.

'Aaah! Aah! Ahahaha! AHAHAHAHA!' Supergirl dropped the man, taken aback by his hand being severed, and Joker grabbed at his detached hand.

Harry didn't even have time to appreciate the fact that the pale man showed no pain beyond the half-excited scream, as he sent another spell into the man's face. Joker was hit full force by the bludgeoning-charm and fell, dazed, onto his back with the bones in his face shattered.

Supergirl spun in a blur, and had her hands raised and in fists when Harry's stunner caught her in the chest. She, from what he could tell, was as firm on the no-killing law as Batman or her cousin. Maybe in anger her morals had lessened, but his lopping off of Joker's hand seemed to have snapped her out of that.

'HunhHunhHunh,' Joker muttered, as Harry approached with the clown's gun aimed at it's owner's chest. 'Hhhhhehehe… haaaHaaahhhh,' he wheezed through an obliterated jaw. Most likely, some of the bones had been pushed into the Joker's throat.

And still the Clown laughed.

Harry's left palm shone bright with a Killing Curse, and the green light cast a broken grin into light as he stared down at the laughing clown.

Harry turned the palm to the Joker, and let the curse fly. The green light struck the Joker in the chest, and the laughing stopped. The air was quiet in its absence, if only for a moment.

The handgun held fifteen rounds, and Harry put each of them into the already dead clown. If this was part of his mission, he would take no half-measures. He left the clown almost unrecognisable, with his face and chest both bloody messes, dropped the gun on the ground beside the Joker's feet, and turned around to examine the scene.

With twenty-two faces staring at him, Harry had a feeling he would lose what little anonymity he had on this world.


	7. Seven Teddy Bears

When Kara woke, it was to find herself in a very unexpected location. The last place in the world she would have thought to have come to in after being taken unaware by a pair of emerald eyes and a red bolt of energy.

She woke… at home. In her bed, in her room, at the Kent Farm.

She sat up slowly, confused, and wondered if it had all been a dream. If it had, it was about the strangest dream she had ever had. Kara held a hand against her head, and the covers shifted as a result to show what she was wearing. She let out a surprised noise to discover her costume had been her sleeping attire for the night, and her eyes opened wide as she realised what it meant.

'Barbara!' Kara shot from her bed, and the door to her room shattered as she charged straight through it and down the stairs, seeking the others in the house. She reached the stairs seconds later, and was greeted with startled sounds. Then, before she knew what hit her, she was pulled into a hug by her super-strong cousin.

'Bh! Clrk!' She punched his chest, and tried to shove him away. 'Grff m!'

Clark let her free of the tight hug, but held her at arm's length. She could almost feel his eyes as he looked her over, searching for any injury, and wondered what was wrong with him.

'What're you doing?' She asked in an impressively calm voice, if she did say so herself.

'Where were you?' Clark asked, 'What happened?' He sounded genuinely worried, his voice louder than than the usual mild-mannered tone, and Kara frowned. Thinking, she looked over at the clock and grimaced when she saw the time. It was nearly three in the afternoon… but why hadn't they woken her?

'I was just in my room, what are you talking about?'

'Yesterday! When Br-atman got to the scene the police were already there! The people the Joker had taken were all talking about how the magician that killed him _took_ you after untying them! Commissioner Gordon said that he refused to leave you with the others, and teleported out of there!' Clark said, seemingly in one breath.

'I was… in my room. He didn't hurt me, or anything…' Kara didn't know what to say to that, repeating the same statement from before, and looked at her feet guiltily. Then, she looked up again with a confused and accusatory frown, 'Wait, did you not _check_ my room? Where else would you start?!'

'I… uh, no.' Superman frowned, 'Why didn't I…' He looked to Jonathan and Martha, and Kara followed his gaze to find that they both had expressions of matching befuddlement. As though they'd somehow forgotten that her room existed, or something.

'Barbara! How is she?' Kara suddenly remembered, cursing herself for getting distracted distracted. Clark balked, not expecting the question or its intensity, and took a moment to respond.

'She's… she's better than yesterday,' Clark said, and placed a hand on Kara's shoulder. He gave a reassuring squeeze, and held his other arm open in an offer for a hug.

'That's good,' Kara gave a tight lipped, completely insincere smile, and nodded. 'I think I'll head over to Gotham General, though. I want to be there if she wakes up.'

'Of course, sweetheart,' Martha Kent spoke for the first time in the conversation, and Kara attempted to give a smile in response. She hoped it would be convincing, but Martha's visage turned to a sympathetic smile. Kara frowned, not liking that expression, and looked past her adoptive aunt, and saw the TV screen. There was a sketch on the television, and she found that she vaguely recognised the man staring back at her… but something felt wrong.

'Who is that?' Kara asked, pointing at the screen. Clark looked over his shoulder, and answered her with something she didn't recognise in his voice.

'The magician from… yesterday. He's also the one who you encountered during the Thanagarian invasion.'

'Oh,' Kara gave, as a response. It took a few moments for her mind to catch up with the conversation, and when it did she found herself confused yet again, 'wait… did you say that he _killed_ the _Joker_?!'

'I… did.' Superman nodded slowly, sounding uncertain to Kara. As the conversation ended in that manner, she thought she understood why.

The Joker was dead. This new stranger, who might or might not be a hero, had killed him. That was… bad? Was it bad? Was it good?

Kara thought long and hard about it as she was flying to visit her friend.

-()-

A few minutes before Kara Kent had woken in her bed, Harry Potter had walked through the entrance to Gotham General with a very strong notice-me-not cast upon himself. With the spell, he was undisturbed by the ridiculous number of news-crews and civilians who were searching for him. Or for the mysterious magic-user who had killed the Joker, and whose identity they could not track no matter how hard they tried.

He had to admit, their sketch had a good likeness. Not perfect, but Harry put that down to his eyes. Most people barely saw anything past them, and the hostages didn't have much time to get over the shellshock of that combined with their ordeal and the death of the Joker and the subsequent brutal fashion of making sure. That hardly mattered; what mattered was Harry was going to be recognisable to the majority of people now; it seemed that all the news was covering, at the moment, was what he had done. Harry had also seen a few written interviews and articles regarding the Joker's fate… but he hadn't taken the time to read them just yet. He had other things to deal with.

Creating a place of residence for himself, for example. Harry had found a rock face on the coast midway between Gotham and Metropolis that happened to suit his purpose, and had gotten to work. First, he had dropped down towards the ocean, and caught himself halfway down the sheer drop to hover there. A piercing curse had tested the rock, and Harry had found it suitably strong to not collapse when he drilled through.

He had directed his magic into the rock in the shape of a drill bit, and had hissed as his forearms burned when he channeled a larger amount of magic than was strictly needed; Harry did not like the idea of taking his time with this task, lest he be discovered or attacked.

As the energy collided with rock, and debris was propelled into the air, Harry remembered something he had noticed the night before, but ignored at the time because it was... expected. Almost expected, anyway. Harry had dismissed it as unworthy of note, but now he was doubting himself if only because his mind was idle.

The Joker's core had been made of energy that was… different. Harry had met headcases before, some of them human, and their lifeforce had been maniacal, too, but never to that degree. Perhaps he was just more insane than any of the others, but… it had seemed to _pulsate_ when Harry was looking for Gordon.

He had shaken his head, as his magic burrowed deep enough to form a large room, or a small hall, and a vast space between it and the outside world. Harry had floated inside, not flown. That was an old complaint, that the immortals who were his masters did nothing about; wizards could not achieve true flight, and the closest Harry had seen in his first life had required the brutal taking of an innocent's… innocence to gain.

In the deepest part of the magic-made cave, Harry had restored twelve metres of rock between he and the sheer drop to the ocean, and been cast into darkness. Harry had conjured a ball of light that would sit in the centre of the "ceiling" and had included the ability to alter its brightness with no more effort than to wiggle his fingers. Then, he had cast a smoothing charm on the walls, floor, and ceiling before touching down and removing his shoes to test the feel of this rock below his bare feet. It was good enough, and he had turned his attention to the furnishings of his newest home.

Harry had found, over the years, that his tastes were simple. He did not need much, and the colour scheme was simply what came naturally to him even after all this time. A few pieces of debris permanently transfigured, or as close to a permanent transfiguration as was possible, and he was good. The mattress that he laid on the floor, in one corner, was longer than the queen sized bed in his first home, but still had the comfortable red duvet covers and pillows.

On the floor in the centre of his residence, Harry placed a transfigured ruby rug to have something other than sharp stones beneath him. In the corner, Harry created a desk; at some point he would tune some electrics to run off magic to let him use the internet and such for research.

Other than that, Harry left the large space empty. He didn't know that he'd need it at any point, but believed it would be good have the room to store things that needed to be in his possession, at the very least. A base of operation was very useful, too.

Harry's next act had been more necessary, and was largely because of the result of his fight with Superman. It wasn't often that Harry lost fights, even against the Kryptonian it had not been definitive, because he had been given more power than someone who started life as a mortal should hope to wield. But this recent matchup had brought to mind another fight, which Harry _had_ lost. Without question. It came to mind, because he needed to use the lesson that had been taught could have been driven home again, had he faced off with the entire league instead of just their leader.

It was the longest time Harry had stayed in a world. It was measured in years, over a decade, rather than days, weeks, or months, and it was one of the fights he had been in that still haunted him in his dreams.

No. That wasn't right. He wasn't haunted by other fights, the other things that tortured Harry had been _acts_ or _events_ , only _that_ fight had stayed with him; it had been barely a century into his long life, and he had stood no chance. He had felt _fear_. Terror. An all-consuming self-doubt that Harry had not felt since the day he finally vanquished the red-skinned demon.

The Devil, had been the name it bore. The definitive devil, in its own eyes. It wasn't Lucifer Morningstar, who was the closest thing to the Christian imagination of Satan that Harry had seen so far, that particular immortal didn't care about the affairs of men nearly as much as humans believed. This being had been confined to a single world and, reportedly, had been on one of the upper-tiers of power before falling from grace and being robbed of quite a bit of that power. He had committed some horrific act, and the community of almost-omnipotent beings he had resided with had hated him as a result. They had _sentenced_ him to live only on the simple planet, never free to roam as he had before.

They hadn't given the billion people on that world a second thought, and had moved on with their lives. That was why Harry had gone, _she_ had been watching the suffering of the planet, had shown distress at knowing what was happening to them, and Harry had asked Destiny to send him there to right the wrong. Apparently the course of action was written in his book, because the oldest Endless had done so without a word of persuasion.

It had been stronger than Harry. His power had grown massively since his time on earth, but he had been no match for the devil. That said, he had stood against its onslaught for far longer than the being had expected, and so _Devil_ had decided to play with Harry before killing him. It had hurt immeasurably, and _Devil_ had left him bleeding and dying in a broken mess.

He hadn't passed on, though. He wasn't able to. Harry had laid in that crater for three months, before the residents of the world had dared venture in to fetch him. He did not remember the words they said, when they had discovered him alive, but they had to have been ones of shock. He didn't remember the trip to their hidden village. He didn't remember why their town hall's ceiling had been reflective. He only remembered seeing himself in it. He remembered seeing a charred lump of flesh staring back at him, with emerald eyes burning like someone had captured suns and encased them in a dead man's face.

Harry had no doubt that _she_ had seen every moment, they could look through his eyes. And he had no doubt that that was why the missions had changed. Harry had grown with each of them, as they had sent him to places he had no right to see. Harry had been sent to monumental civilisations, doomed worlds, and to the edges of existence, so that he would never again be reduced to a writhing mass of pain and fear and terror.

But not before Harry's own mind and magic had done far more than they ever could. A thousand days of hell in his own body and mind had changed him more than he could ever have imagined. And, somewhere along the way, his kind heart turned cold.

Harry should have beaten the Kryptonian. He would have, had he not been stopped at the end, but Superman could have done far more damage, as well. With his laser-eyes, or whatever they were, the Kryptonian could have cut off Harry's limbs. Or he could have pulled them from Harry's torso. According to the reports on the internet, he could have frozen Harry and tossed him into the sun. He could have easily done any number of these things, or others Harry could imagine given enough time, for the simple reason that he had the advantage of speed.

Hell, the Flash could have thrust a knife into Harry's heart and, if the _hero_ was smart about it, there was little Harry could do to stop the speedster.

So Harry needed more than just a home from this cavern; a base of operation was well and good, but it could have uses beyond a place to sleep and store items. Had he had a place to go upon being reduced to nothing but a charred inhuman mess with a screaming core, his magic would have been able to focus on more than keeping him _there_. He could have suppressed the pain, when the healing finally began.

As his flesh had knitted itself back together, Harry had felt every moment. As the nerves returned, waves of new, different agony overtook his mind. The damage that had reduced his body to less than a body had reached them, and the pain had grown beyond what he could endure. After that, his sanity had been a fragile thing. He didn't remember for how long, but it wasn't until coldness defeated fear that he was able to face the devil again.

How could one remain sane, when in moments of silence the only memory that came forth was a newly-mended throat _screaming_? His throat. His voice. His screams.

In the more recent past, Harry had sat in the centre of the room and emptied his mind of those thoughts. It had taken an hour, before he judged his magic to be rid of anger and destruction. Then had come the tricky part.

The key was to let out the perfect amount of magic. It had to overtake the space around him, but if entirely unrestrained Harry's magic would have too large an effect on the world's order.

The first time he did this, upon being given a hint by _them_ , it had been beneath a forest. Every tree for a mile had grown beyond reason, and by the time Harry recovered from his magical exhaustion and ventured into the world outside his base of operations, the foliage directly above where he had been sat was as tall as Yggdrasil.

And that wasn't mentioning the animals. He had hated having to kill the big-cats that had grown far too big, but leaving them free to wander would have resulted in the deaths of all nearby villages; their skin had been difficult to penetrate even for Harry's curses.

The soil above him here would become extremely fertile, and Harry would make use of it in the future, but Harry couldn't have a patch of grass on the cliff suddenly grow as long as that in the true wilderness. And he certainly couldn't let whatever insects were around suddenly grow to the size of dobermans.

The stream of magic poured out of Harry's pores, steadily _thrumming_ with each beat of his heart, and Harry felt its absence immediately. He would not be exhausted by the end of this, but he'd need to create other means of fighting- mundane means- if the need presented itself since he would be far from full strength until his magic replenished itself in an hour or two.

His inner eye saw the swirling energy as it explored the room, and watched as it seeped into the walls, floor, and ceiling. The earth could absorb incredible amounts of energy, and would learn the touch of magic. This spot of earth would be forever changed to the mystical, and Harry would thrive here.

As would any other magical, for that matter. Even regular humans would quickly feel the rejuvenation of their energy. It would maintain the long-lasting conjurations of furniture until the end of time, or until something actually pierced the magical shell of this room, and the wards Harry would soon add would also be powered by the now-natural energy radiating from this spot.

After twenty minutes of magic pouring from him, Harry opened his eyes. As he came back to his body, his breathing quickened; he had largely been sustained by magic, and that was why he only now remembered to cast an oxygen-producing spell. It was a foolish mistake to have forgotten to do so earlier, but the error was easily rectified.

Harry stood up, and cracked his back. He relished in the feel of magic surrounding him once again, a sensation he rarely experienced, and had been surprised as a yawn escaped him.

How long had it been since he'd slept?

He was still wondering as he lay on the mattress, and closed his eyes. His second last thought was berating himself for not creating weaponry for whatever fight came while he was unprepared. His last was wondering if this sudden exhaustion was telling him that he was being called to _their_ realm.

It wasn't.

In his slumber, thoughts rearranged themselves in Harry's mind. He tried to understand why this was different, and why the Joker had mattered so much if not because he would have killed Supergirl; it was possible that that would have been the result of her attacking him had Harry not been there, assuming the bomb that Harry had felt, but not searched for, had been made of green rock. It hadn't been on a timer, hooked up to the Clown's detonator instead.

That had not been the end of whatever he need to be here for. If it had been, they would have gotten in contact with him well before now, and he would have known going into it that Supergirl's life would be at risk. They did not make him guess when the matters were truly important.

But it could not be a coincidence that he had found out he needed to kill the Clown with the perfect amount of time it would take him to get there before Supergirl arrived.

Harry's sleeping self had not made a connection, and so it had fallen back on a more surefire method of deducing it. The entire scene, from interrogating a man with his deepest fears to torturing the information out of a rapist, played in a loop.

The fourth time through, Harry's eyes snapped open only part of the way through. When he had half heard a news-report on the radio telling about the Commissioner being taken by the Clown Prince of Crime. Specifically, Harry's eyes opened upon hearing about Barbara Gordon being gravely injured.

Could there be something beyond the Commissioner's job that decided who the Joker would be attacked? Could the daughter have been attacked for her own mistakes, rather than those of her father? Maybe the Joker had not been meaning to hurt just James Gordon by attacking the girl. Maybe he had also been meaning to hurt _Batman_.

Harry'd rolled his shoulders as he stood and walked over to the desk to create a literal arsenal of weapons on the off chance that there would be an incident in the immediate future. He had been asleep for an hour and a half, and his reserves were nearly full, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

He had nodded to himself, with an eyebrow raised as he thought it through. Barbara Gordon was a redhead; Harry had seen her in some article when he was looking into her father. She was somewhat short of stature, nearing petite when standing, and appeared to be very athletic.

Could she be? Harry had wondered. Then he silently cursed himself for an oversight. The night before, Supergirl had been furious. As though her lover had been attacked.

After applying the notice-me-not he currently wore, Harry had vanished and left behind the slight aroma of singed hair.

Harry walked into Barbara Gordon's room, and glanced at the chair in the corner with some mild surprise. A well-dressed man with greying black hair was asleep in the seat, breathing softly and steadily. Harry counted to forty, and dismissed him; the man's breathing did not change in that time, so he believed the slumber must be genuine.

Harry pointed a finger at the man, and a red spark jumped over to him. Harry wouldn't need more than a weak stunner, since this should take no more than a few minutes, but there might be the rustling of sheets and clothes to wake the suit-wearer. The man's breathing hitched and then slowed again, and Harry quietly walked to Barbara's side.

From the pocket of the jeans he wore, Harry pulled a sheet of paper. He held it over the top half of the girl's face, and nodded to himself, confirming his suspicion quickly and easily. Next, he removed the sheet covering the girl's body, and placed his hands under her thigh and shoulder.

And jumped backwards, as the girl's eyes snapped open and she threw a punch. A punch that Harry ducked out of the way of easily, given that the girl was bedridden and half-paralysed.

'What the hell are you-' a stunner silenced the girl, and Harry listened for any sign that someone had heard the brief commotion and would need to have the memory taken from them.

He cringed, as he contemplated removing Batgirl's memory of the incident. He could, of course, but… memories mattered to him. Having gaps in memory was as unpleasant as anything he had experienced. He detested _that_ far more than pain. Instead, Harry pressed a thumb to her head and pushed some harmless magic into her mind.

She would not lose any memory, but she would gain fragments of one. One in which Harry, or the man who's sketch had been on the news constantly playing on the television in her room, transformed into a large spider on rollerskates that performed the tango with a small humanoid creature with floppy ears showing beneath a talking hat that sang a silly song for the performing magical creatures.

To be safe, Harry closed his eyes and allowed his mind's eye to examine the area. Humans, their lights dimmer than the two in the room with him, filled the hospital. There was conflict in the majority of the cores, either from their own suffering or from that of a loved one it was hard to tell, but none were descending into madness. Harry noticed that there was a strength in the suited man, and decided that he must be related by crime fighting rather than blood, but his eye was drawn to the girl on the bed more than that.

Her core was… hiding something. It was blanketing the truth of how she felt, and Harry felt something akin to concern; he knew well what the result could be of using such a method. Her pain would still seep through, and eventually the dam would not be able to hold back the tidal wave of emotion.

But, even with the slight worry, her core wasn't what Harry was focused on for long. He realised something far more interesting. Her _soul_ was whole. No part of it had splintered or even darkened in the time since he last saw her. Remarkable.

Harry turned the girl over, chucking another spark at the sleeping man to be safe, and cast a ward on the door. It was weak, but would last long enough to encourage people they had other matters of business to attend to until he was well clear of the building.

The gown she wore was open at the back, and Harry moved the sheets up to cover her shapely rear as he moved the gown up so that her back was exposed. He ignored how soft her skin was, getting to the task at hand.

Harry held a hand over the small of Batgirl's back, and his magic brushed against her flesh to examine the bone hidden beneath it. Had the situation been ideal, or as close to ideal as was possible when the girl he was healing had been attacked quite seriously, the break would have been clearly visible to his outer eyes. But that setback was minor, and Harry easily overcame it.

He found the fracture only three vertebrae above his starting point, and paused in thought. While he had not performed much in the way of spinal-surgery, Harry believed there to be two _clear_ paths available to him. He had assumed that knowing the nature of the break, and how much human-surgery had been able to do for it, would make his decision for him… but it had not.

Potions would have been a very viable option, if only this world had ingredients available. With the saturation of the soil around his newly-created home, Harry could plant the ingredients, but he wanted to do this before the Justice League had the chance to move her to a private facility or even to realise just how bad the situation was and how miraculous an overnight recovery was. Potions would not be ready soon enough, the ingredients would need to grow and he would need to prepare the actual mix.

The other clear, undoubtedly effective option was one Harry would only use in a situation most dire; it was something he felt on a deep level because of past experience. It had been reinforced by one of the most harrowing experiences in his long life.

The other options were very… different from one another.

The first was simple. It was Harry's species' magic, and the only risk of an _experienced_ user performing the procedure was that he or she would make a mistake and the cure would not take this first time. He would cut open her back and mend the nerves and then the vertebrae itself. The heal would be stronger than it had been before, and she would feel better immediately.

But Harry was not an experienced user. As able as he was with magic and the delicate matters of its use, he had no illusions of his abilities or of the ramifications of failure; if he made a mistake the girl could either die or be left in a coma for the rest of her natural life. So he needed to find another way.

The second option could count as two, but Harry included them in the same compartment of his abilities. Those he had no wish to utilise. It was a larger compartment than he would have liked.

Neither was natural even for someone like him; both were abilities that had been dangerous, and neither's race had survived. Both abilities had been given to him in order to live on and to appease the original gifter.

One of the abilities, after causing a civil war, had left only a few thousand survivors; they had been fearful and panicked and had been certain that their only option was to attack others before they took them off guard and eradicated what was left of their homeworld. They had been able to kill, maim, or destroy with a single word, and their minds were corrupted. Harry had failed to prevent the carnage that wiped out their species, not managing to prevent the civil war, so he had been given another role.

Harry had cleaned up his mess by finishing what the people themselves had started. He had committed genocide, and stained his soul. It was one of many dark patches. Harry wished he could say it was the largest.

The other was a story of peace and prosperity. It had been one of Harry's few missions that had not involved violence or even the threat of fighting. He had met a mutation of a species who had discovered that their touch was a healing one; they had _helped_ people, had given up their homes in order to travel and bring health and happiness to those who shared their world. But there had been a risk that they could not take.

Their very touch could save lives, but they had also been able to do the opposite. And they unanimously understood what they had to do, to stop the risk of darkness seeping into their hearts thanks to the greed that all people feel. Harry had tried to save them, to change their minds, but he was no diplomat.

They had chosen to die. Committed mass suicide as Harry watched on in horror.

Another failure on Harry's part. Another instance that had been branded onto his soul.

The powers of a god, gifted to mortals. That was the way Harry saw them; abilities that were destined to do great things no matter who received them. Whoever that person was, they would live a life leaning to evil or good, and then they would die; either it would be passed to another or the power would die with them. It was a bad idea to give them to anybody.

For him to use them, though…

Harry had no desire to become a god. And that is what he would be; an immortal who could shape the world around him to his will with the first- a language that allowed him to defy even _them_ \- or one who held the domain of life and death with the second.

Harry had helped gods, and he had fought gods. For him to become one would be to doom himself and those around; he had never met another with flaws so deeply ingrained in their psyche.

And, so, he hesitated. He did not know what to do, and that fact scared him. He wished that the wound was a simpler one, and that healing magic could solve the problem. He wondered if it could, and furrowed his brow.

It couldn't… not without being rather _intimate_ with her.

Wait.

Harry closed his eyes, and tried to remember where that thought had come from. He remembered, and chuckled lowly to himself. A hollow sound.

He had been pelted with plates by a slightly crazy woman while her husband watched with concern, because Harry had not taken into consideration the fact that they cared deeply about their energy, and because Harry's had almost mixed with hers and because she was married and he had no shortage of suitors to "go mingle with."

 _Auras_ , not energy. Harry shook his head; those on this planet did not _exude_ energy, theirs remained within themselves. The concept of an aura held an entirely different meaning; spiritual, rather than literal. His smile fell away, as the story of the couple finished itself inside his mind.

They had been deeply involved in the resistance, and Harry had been a great help in their fight. They had won, in fact, and had defeated those trying to invade the resource-rich land. But the cost had been great. As Harry fought his way to the front and finished the fight, he had left them to fight beside each other. _Soulmates side by side with sword in hand_ , he remembered vaguely; they had died with their auras intertwined, and both had had smiles on their faces as _she_ took them to the next life.

Harry closed his eyes, and his magic seeped below Batgirl's skin. He felt serenity, as its nature for once turned to healing, and he heard the girl sigh softly at the peace that flooded her, too. He felt the injured column mend itself, and the nerves grow back into place with their bonds strengthened by magic's touch. He felt the spinal laceration vanish, all traces of the injury disappearing, and then his magic moved slowly to the other injuries on her person.

He felt his magic soothe her hurts, and smiled as Batgirl was mended.

And then it was over, and Harry opened his eyes. He looked down at the girl, and shook his head at the optimistic thoughts. As though her physical injuries could hold a torch to those done to her mind.

As he turned the human girl over again, and covered her with the sheet once more, Harry had a single thought. He regretted believing the girl to be unremarkable when first they had met; he had not seen distortion in her energy or core or soul, or whatever one wished to name it. That she was shocked and reeling, but… unchanged.

That she would not crack from the experience was unheard of; he had seen those who had undergone the experience shake it off eventually, he had even seen them grow from it, but for a victim of rape to actually go through the experience intact was… amazing. Even to one who had seen what Harry had.

Harry would keep an eye on this girl, too. She seemed to… _matter_.

Harry felt confident that Batgirl's lover would help her through this, at least. Supergirl's nature seemed as promising as Barbara's, and both seemed utterly capable of love. He had seen Supergirl's energy spike when she was concerned for the other girl, and if that was not true love Harry did not know what was.

Harry considered leaving some sign that it was him who had healed Batgirl, but decided that doing so would put Batman on guard before Harry wanted; potentially, the man would call in his colleagues for backup and Harry would be in trouble. He had recovered, now, but he needed to flesh out the plans to take them on if he was going to face the league, or even a few members, all at once. They'd notice him when he got near the batcave, and the skirmishes so far could turn to war.

And taking credit for healing her seemed pointless as he had little doubt that the World's Greatest Detective would, eventually, deduce that it was Harry who had helped and the girl would find out that she owed him some kind of debt. Forgiving that debt would help Harry convince her lover that he was here to help.

-()-

Kara glared at the seven teddy bears, three boxes of chocolate and ten get-well soon cards she had now bought Barbara. She could not, for the life of her, figure out why she kept going back to the gift shop. And she didn't appreciate the jokes the lady behind the counter had started telling, about how whoever she was visiting was very lucky to have such a loving girlfriend.

Kara then glared at the door. It seemed like she suddenly _needed_ another present every time she was about to enter it, and she needed _something_ to blame even if she couldn't hit it like she wanted to. Not without destroying the wall along with it.

She stood in front of the door, with her hand hesitating to turn the knob, and focused on the task at hand. This time, she _would_ open the door. She took a steadying breath, and prepared to face her foe. WIth determination etched into her brow, Kara grasped the handle and twisted. The door swung open, away from her, and she let out a shout of victory.

'AHA!' She darted over the threshold, all of the many presents in her arms, with a grin on her face for having overcome the obstacle that was in her path.

'Ms Kent?' A dignified, if tired, voice with a British accent asked with concern and confusion.

'Oh… hullo, Alfred.' Kara peered past her bundle of soft toys, cards and chocolates and found the butler looking at her with confusion from his place on the other side of the room, next to a chair that looked to have recently been vacated. 'Having a nice day?'

'I… am,' Alfred nodded slowly, still obviously baffled by her behaviour, 'and yourself?'

'I'm okay,' Kara smiled at him, and then nodded over to the bed where Barbara was lying as her expression turned more sombre, 'how's she doing?'

'There hasn't been any… change…' Alfred trailed off, his eyes now on Barb's sleeping form. His brow creased into a frown, and Kara opened her mouth to ask what was wrong. 'She… she seems to have moved.'

'Moved? Are… are you sure?' Kara asked, uncertainly. From what she understood Barbara had been comatose since they brought her to hospital.

'I am,' Alfred strode over to the _beep-beeping_ machine next to Barbara's bed, and looked at the piece of paper hanging from it. Kara assumed he was looking for signs that she had done some damage. She had no medical knowledge, and walked over to her friend's side. Kara placed the gifts in a chair, and stood by her comatose friend.

With a soft smile on her face, Kara tried not to think about what her friend had been through.

'You'll be okay, Babs. The League'll find a way to make you better.' Even as she said it, Kara heard the hesitation in her own voice. Gotham had an excellent team of doctors, and they had reluctantly told them that the hopes of even a partial recovery were near-nonexistent.

Kara squeezed her friend's thigh reassuringly, and didn't realise she was using too much strength until her friend's eyes snapped open.

Barbara screamed.

Kara screamed.

Alfred screamed.

-()-

Bruce Wayne was perplexed. It was not a state of being that he was used to, but he had no choice but to admit, today, that he was baffled by the situation at hand. Barbara had been paralysed, and Bruce hated himself for being unable to stop that; it was why he refused to go to sleep, because he knew he would see it happen and knew that he would be unable to do anything as the Joker attacked his protege.

Bruce had hated himself for being unable to fix the damage to her spine, and had already been contacting those potential leaguers who had access to other resources than what was available to him. He had spoken to those he knew were more intelligent than him, and the only person who had given even a slightly optimistic response had been the Atom. Though Doctor Fate had not answered, so there was a chance he might have known something to be done.

He had hated himself for being unable to _visit_ her. Not being able to stand seeing her broken and beaten form in a hospital bed. Not being able to know that he had failed to even catch that bastard who did that to her.

Not without losing some of the meagre sanity he retained.

Instead, Bruce was researching the new magician. He had spent inordinate amounts of time behind his computer since the man's arrival, searching for some kind of answer to _how_ the man had arrived from nowhere. Still, he had found nothing.

Until now.

Until the two situations had collided rather spectacularly.

Alfred had been speaking more hurriedly than Bruce thought he had ever heard the Englishman talk in all the time they'd known each other.

 _Miraculous_.

That was what they were calling Barbara's recovery. A miracle that she was suddenly walking as though there had never been an injury in the first place. The hospital seemed to worry that they might be sued, for giving such horrid news when it was apparently untrue.

But Bruce Wayne knew something they did not. Even before discovering the hidden layer of the video he now watched, Batman had been all but certain that someone had healed Barbara. His first thought had been that it was a plot from one of his many enemies, but after much deliberation he had decided that Barbara was herself and that there was nothing about her recovery that could be a benefit to those who wished Bruce harm; they would have been better to have used her injury to their advantage and capitalise on Bruce's weakened mental state. If they could discover her identity, it was feasible that the mysterious healer could have tailed her to find out the Batcave's location. That would have given them the perfect opportunity to attack.

And there was also the fact that very few of Batman's enemies had greater resources than Bruce himself. That thought had turned him onto a more likely possibility, and it had taken him some time to dismiss it. He had only accepted that it was untrue when the true culprit had been made clear.

The League of Assassins had a way of entirely undoing anything short of death, the Lazarus Pit. Between Talia and Ra's, both of whom had tried to curry favour with Bruce in the past through similar tactics, Jason standing out as an example, they seemed to be the most likely party to have healed Batgirl. Batman had been working on that belief, while also pursuing other avenues of investigation, when he commandeered the Hospital's surveillance camera footage.

They had not covered the outside and Bruce had been all-but-certain, for a few moments, that that meant he would find no sight of Barbara's healer; any member of the League of Assassins would have scaled the building and entered her room through the window. A few seconds later, though, the detective corrected himself. It was daytime when Barbara had been healed; there was no way they would have gone unnoticed had they used such a noticeable method of ingress in the daylight. Batman had faith that Alfred would have noticed had there been a ninja waiting in the room during the night and the morning, so they could not have entered during the night.

Bruce looked at the footage of Barbara's floor. There was no way to know if they would choose the roof or the ground as their means of entry, but for them to reach her door there was no choice but to enter the corridor that housed Batgirl's room. He watched the footage again and again, looking for somebody who was making an attempt to go unseen. Either they would be obvious about it or not, Batman would have no trouble picking them out no matter what technique they chose. He knew their methods.

That was what he had thought, going into the task. Bruce reassessed his belief, and wondered who the League of Assassins would have sent. If Ra's meant to hide his involvement, the aged leader would know to send nobody but his best. Bruce wondered, then, if he had underestimated whoever the agent was or if he had overestimated his own ability to spot those who were practising stealth.

Five times Bruce studied the tape until Kara entered the room, and five times he failed to identify the culprit. Each time, Batman paused before punching the button to replay the footage once again.

He stopped the sequence as Kara arrived because logic told him that the perpetrator must have been done before that point. Otherwise, Barbara would not have been able to leap up from the bed as their yells brought concerned nurses to the room.

Still, Bruce watched an hour's worth of footage each time, factoring in that Alfred's recollection of the time he fell asleep may have been off by up to twenty minutes and wanting to be entirely thorough, and after the fifth viewing the Hero's eyelids were growing heavy. Had Alfred been there, Bruce would not have been allowed to continue " _torturing_ himself," as he could hear his oldest friend telling him with sternness in his voice.

Bruce's finger hovered over the button again, as he told himself that it was pointless. He was just growing less able to find some hidden detail; if he had missed it the first five times, he would not find it on the sixth watch. Bruce cursed himself again, for rushing out the night before rather than placing his own surveillance equipment in Batgirl's room. Retrospect made all men brilliant, though, and he forced the thought out of his mind.

He blinked, pressing his eyelids forcefully together, and opened his eyes again to ignore the bloodshot reflection in his monitor. He hit the key, and focused. He was missing _something_. It was nagging at the edge of his mind, and Bruce needed to know what it was. It could pose a danger to his family. He had to find out what it was.

Forty Seven Minutes and thirteen seconds in, Bruce hit pause.

What was it that was bothering him, and had been for the past four seconds? He was missing something, he knew it. He just didn't know _what_ he was missing.

Bruce hit another key, and the video proceeded a frame. He did the same again and again, the camera being of a decent quality and requiring many frames to equal the ten more seconds for Bruce's niggling feeling to vanish.

And that was more irritating, again. That meant he had examined the entire space of the footage that contained whatever was wrong, and still had missed the cause.

Bruce isolated those eleven seconds, and played them again.

And again.

Over and over until he could perfectly recall the outfits of the four civilians in the hallway, and the slight differences in the scrubs of the medical personnel that did not wear white coats. Besides the fact that one was not wearing appropriate footwear, that another was without socks, that another pair had both just woken from naps of significant length but that one's sleep had been far more restful than the other, and that one nurse had recently had sex but not with anyone in frame, Bruce did not learn anything of note from those members of staff.

He did note, however, that one of the coat-wearing doctors was apparently dipping into the drugs they carried, and more than likely was distributing them as well given the scratched but very expensive watch that showed briefly on his right wrist; the other doctor was not criminal, unless one counted the fact that his coat had not been washed for some time.

Bruce waited a moment before pressing play again. Something had been wrong, amongst those facts.

The staff had not been close to Barbara's room, so there was no need to focus on them. None of their faces or habits had been relevant from what Batman could tell in his sleep-deprived state, so what was it?

The woman and man who were visiting a sick child had gotten bad news. She leant against him, as he raised his hand to wipe at his red and teary eyes three times in the short space of time Bruce observed. The tissue the woman clutched in a closed fist only confirmed it, as she pulled the hand in close to her chest while her shoulders shook. As though she wanted to pull her son into a hug but was not able to. Bruce believed that he would be too frail for such an action to be wise, but it could also be the case that it was only because the child was absent and in bed.

And the other occupant, a young businessman who appeared very haggard to Bruce but was trying desperately not to give off the impression, drew no suspicion as he paced back and forth in front of his father's room. He wanted to give the dying man a good impression, probably had just started a job or entered his dad's company and was trying to fill his shoes, but was not confident in his ability. He was trying to psyche himself up, and Batman recalled that he entered a few moments after this space of time ended, but viewed gaining his father's trust, or pride, as an almost impossible task.

So what had he missed?

Bruce watched the footage again, and focused not for the first time on Barbara's room's door. He watched it intently.

And then his eyes moved to a nurse striding quickly past.

Batman hit replay, and watched Barbara's door.

His eyes moved to the shadow of the thieving doctor.

Batman slapped himself, looked again, and failed for a third time to focus on the spot. He was exhausted, and his eyelids were becoming impossibly heavy as he exercised what was left of his discipline.

Bruce moved his fingers to the computer's controls and tapped out a sequence of seven keys. The screen around Barbara's door darkened, and Bruce hit replay. He resisted the temptation to look at his own reflection with some great effort, and stared at the single spot.

Beneath his mask, Bruce's eyebrows rose to try and greet his hairline. He leant back in his chair, and blinked. Once, twice, and a third time. Bruce watched the screen as the footage stopped as the wizard stepped through the door. His right hand lingered on the frame, and his eyes remained on the hint of a tattoo that sat on the young man's hand as his mind chugged along, thinking.

This was… unexpected. But, then, it shouldn't have been. Of course this new arrival would be involved in Barbara's recovery; he had encountered Batgirl before, and had been the one to kill the Joker. Given the evidence of magic, it made sense for the young man to be able to heal as well as kill.

In fact, it was a good thing. Bruce nodded. Zatanna would be able to examine the heal, and tell Bruce what else, if anything, the spell would do to Batgirl. That would allow Bruce to begin to understand the new arrival's intentions and whether they were just misguided or if they truly were sinister.

Again, Bruce nodded. But, out of the corner of his eye, the Caped Crusader noticed the table that still sat with chains surrounding it. He did not want to doubt his friend, but this magician had been able to escape her constraints. Bruce had played the footage over and over, and had seen nothing indicative of difficulty. Maybe Zatanna had simply underestimated the young man… or his powers were on another scale to hers.

Batman would check with the others, to see if any of them had an idea. If this Magic user didn't use magic, or used magic from a different world, it would likely be cosmic in nature. Bruce was hopeful, then, that Jon might have encountered something of its kind in his travels across the galaxies.

The Dark knight blinked, and when his eyes opened again an hour had passed. If he was going to contact the others, a few hours of sleep were necessary first; he was used to functioning without sleep, but the night before had been… trying, and he had hardly slept even before those events. His body was beginning to fail him, and there was no other cure than rest.

The nightmares that would visit him were unavoidable, and Batman sighed as he stood from his chair with more effort than he would have liked. At the very least, he would be free from the manifestation of his failure for some time; Barbara would be kept for testing for some time and then her father would keep her constantly within his sight for weeks if not months. And Kara would be even more insistent that her friend take it easy, no matter how much Barbara wished to vent through fighting.

As Bruce ran a hand over his face, he discovered he was mistaken in an earlier thought. He tried to remember removing the mask, and found he could not.

-()-

Thirteen. He was in no way searching them out, yet Harry had stopped thirteen crimes tonight. Gotham city truly must be broken, for there to be such a ludicrously high percentage of the population that robbed and killed and stole.

He left the thirteenth person, a woman who had cracked some drunk man with expensive clothes over the head with a bottle, stuck to a wall like the rest of them and carried on on his way. He wondered what was going through her mind, given that she had been lifted into the air and glued to the wall by an invisible force with no explanation. But, then, none of them had been able to see him a hundred metres up in the air.

Harry had been floating above the city and around it in ever-growing circles as he searched for the Batcave. The remnants of his apparation from the cave would be faint, but the small wound would not have closed entirely yet. From this height, he would be able to find it with ease once he got within three hundred metres of the spot. Given that he was being hyper-vigilant, half a kilometre would likely be close enough for him to spot it.

Harry believed that the Batman's hideout was below ground; he called himself a _bat_ , it had been dark and damp inside and, most importantly, it was called a _cave_. His first thought had been in the abandoned tunnels of some long-neglected train system, since it was replaced by the more modern subway people would rarely venture down into the depths, but it seemed he had been wrong to think that.

Nor had anything shown up under the city's harbour or even in the sewers; while it had smelled more of stale air, as the underground was prone to, Harry thought the sewage-smell could have just been kept out by some technology or type of reinforcement. Or maybe Batman had a magical ally.

Though, whomever that might be, they would not be able to close the Apparation wound entirely. Perhaps he or she would be able to conceal it, which would hide it from his constant senses, but Harry would be able to _see_ it even if he could not sense it.

Harry continued his search for well over another hour, circling the city's outer limits and then the roads leading away and nearing the woods, before finally feeling something on the edge of his consciousness.

Apparently the wound hadn't been covered even slightly.

Closing his eyes, Harry allowed his inner-eye to overcome his senses and located the slight pulses just too far away to pinpoint. Harry moved towards them, and covered the distance in a fraction of the time it would have taken to trudge on foot to the old-style building.

Harry touched down on the ground just outside the mansion's gate, and ran a hand over his short hair.

He felt that, if one wished to keep their identity secret, it wasn't smart to write your last name in big letters a hundred metres from the hideout where you keep all of your costumes and computers.

Bruce Wayne was Batman. Harry probably should have guessed, it now made perfect sense to him that Batman would need money and to have vanished off the face of the earth for years to train, but either way… he knew now.

But he had no idea what to do with the information. Maybe the opportunity to make use of it would present itself, or maybe not. All Harry knew was that it hardly hurt to know two of the identities of the League. It did not seem likely for Batman to come after him for knowing his secret, even if Harry intended to tell man of his knowledge.

Harry heard the rumble of a motorbike in the distance, and turned on the spot. The driver would hear the crack but, whoever it was, he wouldn't guess what it meant.

Eventually, Jason Todd would make the connection. But it would be months until they met.


	8. Sandstorm

Thirty two days later, Harry Potter vanished an empty water bottle with a thought as he observed the scene before him. While he didn't know the name of this country- nobody seemed sure, since he had followed reports of violence to contested lands- he knew the situation before him unfortunately well.

In the middle of a sandstorm, armed men lurked as they waited for the convoy to reach them. Some had only small arms and rifles, Harry doubted those weapons would do more than scratch the surface of the French tanks that were incoming. That meant they were there for the cargo and to win supplies and weapons for themselves as the others, armed with rocket-propelled-grenades, dealt with the soldiers escorting the weapons, medicine, and food it to a nearby cluster of villages.

The conflict had originated due to religion, along with politics, xenophobia, and self-interest. Harry had seen religion hurt and help in equal measure over the years, and each case had to be seen from a detached perspective; he had no doubt of the existence of gods, but the only ones he had encountered that wanted war from their worshipers did not grant a peaceful afterlife. Those who had served such gods loyally in life would become playthings for the immortals upon their death, for an indeterminate amount of time, while their victims would be granted passage to an afterlife shrouded in more mystery than Harry could peer through. All he knew was that their deliverer was kind and caring, and that he would bet everything he had that it was a better place than the hells that these men would go to.

If their worshipped god did not want them, most likely because they had committed atrocities in its name, or it did not exist, then they would be given to this planet's corresponding afterlife and whatever god lived there until _that_ god passed on and they were taken beyond, to the place Harry would never see. There had been many ancient religions on this planet and Harry didn't know which of them had existed, let alone which still cared what happened to the humans who barely acknowledged their continued existence.

But it didn't matter, really. Any of them would serve the purpose of punishing the men that Harry killed today.

He approached the terrorists without haste, knowing that the soldiers were still ten minutes from the ambush-point thanks to the tracking spell he had placed upon their leader. Harry's eyes were closed, his inner-eye being unbothered by the sand swarming around the bubble that covered his face. The same could not be said for those he was disabling, as they shielded their eyes with cloth or with their own hands and arms. They would be used to the local environment, but their bodies could only adapt to it so much and humans were not able to function properly in such extreme conditions.

Harry was silent as he stepped behind the nearest man, the only one with functional goggles, who had a battered pair of binoculars raised to his eyes in order to keep watch for the approaching convoy.

Harry clamped a hand over the man's mouth, and the scarlet glow of the stunner escaped only through the cracks between his fingers. He lowered the man to the floor, plucking the American pistol from the holster on the man's hip at the same time. Harry pulled back the slide, and sent a tiny tendril of magic past the bullet to look for any dirt or sand in the barrel.

If he was lucky, the unconscious lookout would know what Harry needed. If not, though, he would need to take at least one more of them for interrogation. He would take two.

Harry peered at each, and found no clear sign of who was in charge. Instead, he looked for the subtle signs. Presumably the senior two would be leading both the scavengers and the killers, so he examined each and every person.

Amongst those with RPGs, there was a clear choice. The man's energy was stiller than the others, as though he was wholly used to the stress of fighting and killing, and he was all-but motionless where the others fidgeted. He had found a position that could be held for an hour or two if necessary without becoming unbearable, and that told Harry of the man's experience as much as did his aura.

Of those who would rob the supplies, there were two possibilities. Harry examined both, and found that neither gave signs of nervousness or inexperience; one was younger but as confident as the older man. The older man had some disability in his right foot, making it odd for him to be in the scavenging team.

Harry only confirmed that the older man was in charge when the younger's hand ran over the length of his rifle in a loving, caring manner. As though he adored the killing power of the weapon, and the violence and power he could achieve through its use. As though he was aiming to kill, rather than fetch what they needed. His ability, then, was derived from a thirst for blood rather than a belief in their cause. That made Harry's decision as easy as it could be; nobody, at this level anyway, would follow a man who did not share their motivation.

Harry raised his left hand, the pistol in his right aiming over his fist, and a pair of red lights shot from his knuckles. One struck the lead RPGer, and the other the leader of the scavengers. Both fell to the ground, unconscious, while Harry pulled the trigger of his stolen handgun.

The first gunshot impaired his hearing, so only the heat that his inner eye saw spring from his barrel showed that eight shots followed the first. That, and the fact that the terrorists fell to the ground as their lights dimmed and their life-liquid poured from new holes opened by jacketed lead.

Harry left them there, picked up each of the three unharmed ambushers, and vanished from the country with a loud _crack_.

-)(-

He didn't want to sully his home with what he would do to them, and certainly didn't want them to be rejuvenated by the magic that overflowed there, so Harry had created another room in the cliff face, cut off from his home by nearly a mile of rock. In there, he chained up each of the captured terrorists and left them dangling from the ceiling. They had air, thanks to a spell, and each other for company. He would return an hour later, to learn where their organisation's headquarters were located. That would be enough time for the disconcertion from their lapse of consciousness to have an effect, and would make Harry's job easier.

Ideally he would just tear the information from their minds now, they would die as a result but that was their fate already and their souls would be untarnished by a continued existence, but he needed them awake to gauge the toll his mind-magics were taking on them. Without that precaution they would perish before he was done; he needed to know more than just the location, if they had the knowledge to offer to him.

Back in his home, Harry glanced at the screen of the laptop sat on his desk. It had not been too tricky to get it to work off magic, though he had gone through three others in the attempt, but making it effective for his purposes had been more difficult. Draining the core of electricity and then running magic through each part of its circuit was something he had done before, having needed to learn it in the technologically advanced lands he had visited, but the circuits of this planet had some slight differences that had stumped him briefly.

 _Copper_ was ever so slightly different in this world, and Harry had needed to go slightly easier on certain fragile parts.

Harry hadn't been able to figure out where he could look for Kryptonite in the real world, given that he was now recognised as a _superhero_ by the news-casters. They seemed to love that there was now a _superhero_ -who-kills; many of the population apparently knew how much more effective Superman would be if he dealt with the psychos and killers permanently and were thrilled to see someone stepping up and taking action _like_ _they would_. Or in the way they insisted they would if they had the power.

A lie, but an unintentional one. Humans were capable of taking lives, but the further they progressed the less able they were to take them with their own hands. Some would be able to shoot a man dead, more would be able to click a button and end lives through a computer. But their softness would become evident when a knife was put into their hand, and they were told to slit the throat of one deserving of death.

Harry was fairly certain that they were happier because he didn't slaughter everyone he found committing a crime; robbery wasn't a _good_ thing, but Harry hardly thought it was something he should punish harshly. So long as they had only stolen, he left them stuck to walls, and returned the possessions to the owners, if he could, or to the police if he could not. He didn't care to kill them if their crimes were forgivable, even; if someone was stabbed, it was horrible but an eye for an eye wasn't logical. It wasn't justice to kill a killer, when there was the option to imprison the killer.

Whereas, if someone took ten eyes, they deserved a harsh punishment. They were dangerous, without doubt, and imprisonment would do nothing to reform them. If they took ten lives, forfeiting their own was fair. Lenient, even. For one to kill ten people, they had to be that way by nature and indulging in their darkness. It was not a single incident, where someone could be provoked into rash action, humans called it "a crime of passion."

Those in America who had been upset to see him, many of them loathing the practice of magic where others disliked super-powered strangers and, still more, trusted Superman over Harry, had changed their tune when he broadened his horizons. Primarily, he'd stay in the States for the simple reason that this was where the super-powered fighting was centered, but the sandstorm had only been the most recent of many ventures into war-torn countries.

The first of these ventures to include an American Platoon had reached the news quickly, and one of the soldiers had managed to film it on some helmet-mounted camera. Upon learning that he had protected their soldiers, when there was virtually no hope for them in a situation where they were pinned down by far more than their fair share of enemies, the American public had decided Harry must be a good guy after all.

And his picture had spread further. Hence the difficulty to find Kryptonite. Who would sell it to a superhero, and be dumb enough to think he wouldn't capture them and give them to the police?

And, even if he used a glamour, where could Harry find a seller?

He had found his answer while browsing an anti-Superman forum, where there was a mention of something called _the Dark web_.

As it turned out, there was an entire section of the internet that Harry could not access with the simple browser he had been using. That had been frustrating; Harry's skills lay firmly outside of computing because he had spent most of his time in worlds of fighting and surviving, not typing at a keyboard. Not to mention the variety of systems found in different worlds.

He had found, eventually, that he needed to access something called Tor Hidden Service Protocols. He had no idea what that meant, but there was something about onion-like layers of defense to let users remain anonymous, and it hadn't been too tricky to find a browser that solely dealt with the parts of the internet that used that system. He'd gotten hold of one in fewer than seven hours of looking.

There were sites there devoted to crime, and others that Harry steered clear of. There was nothing he could do about the gun-trafficking or the rather disturbing pornography, and so he left the offenses that were being committed there. He felt fairly certain, though, that other tech-savvy heroes would be able to if they put their minds to it.

On the more basic criminal sites, Harry quickly found the appropriate subsection and that was where the browser constantly sat now to let him monitor any more developments. It was a site on which crews could be gathered for upcoming jobs, but the forum Harry was hovering over was a group of people trying to gather a crew to fight Superman should they run into him during the heist. They were claiming to have Kryptonite, so Harry was just waiting for a slipup in which one of them gave the details of when and where their job would take place. If they had the genuine article, great. If not, he would begin again, only not from scratch this time.

Nothing new was on the board yet, so Harry moved on to the next piece of business he had for himself.

It wasn't one that would be fun, and Harry was very glad that he had placed the repellant wards a fortnight ago, and that they had plenty of time to take effect on the world around. It meant that he would just need to supplement them in a single spot a mile away, and the earth would be barren of all life for the time he needed.

He didn't need long, but it would be unfortunate if people or animals happened to die because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He appeared in the grass of the world above, a mile from the patch where his magical ingredients were growing, and sat cross-legged on the ground.

Unfortunately, summoning debris wouldn't help in this transfiguration, if it could be called such.

Harry raised a hand, and cracked his neck as he began the preparations for another ability he should not have. Another ability that was very useful at the moment, and related, he believed, to the moronic god who had given such gifts to other mortals Harry had encountered. It was an ability that he could occasionally make use of, whether or not it went against nature.

The people who had originally been given the power had all but wiped themselves out by the time Harry was sent there. The last two, the most able amongst their race in the art of the power, had been a threat to the lives of those in their solar system. Harry had been instructed to kill them quickly, and he had.

Harry shuddered as he channelled the certain type of magic, one very different to his own, into his right palm. He took three deep breaths and exhalations, before casting what would ordinarily be a spell of conjuration. This magic was not _ordinary_ , and took a decent portion of Harry's energy from him; that was useful, at the moment, because too-potent spells could potentially lead to the captured fighters perishing prematurely. In mind-magics, an overuse of strength could twist the mind into something unrecognisable.

He still had weaponry stockpiled, should he have need of it.

So Harry poured energy into the spell, and closed his eyes as the shape formed and twisted in the air. His mind's eye withdrew, slightly, at the dazzling blaze that accompanied this power and Harry smiled to himself as he felt the instinctual need to flee.

Dragons hunted all things, after all. And he had _created_ the creature; he had no control over it to exert as he would had it been transfigured or conjured.

Harry felt a brief temptation to wrestle the thing's mind, wishing to see how he measured up to the apex-magical beast. Quickly, though, Harry pushed it aside. Mainly because there was every chance he would lose in a battle of wills against a Dragon; their souls and minds mingled together naturally, and their resolution was immense.

But, as the dragon opened its mouth to roar and spew fire, Harry felt saddened. Creating such a beautiful creature, only to kill it, was a crime. It would have but a taste of life before being sent on.

Harry sent a piercing spell into the Dragon's open maw, as he felt fire stir in its throat. It did as it was supposed to, and stabbed straight through the unguarded, if tough, flesh inside the dragon's mouth. Another came after, punching further into the dragon's head to chip away at the bone. The third spell finished the job, and within a second of the first connecting the dragon collapsed to the ground in a heap.

It really had not been a fair fight. There had been times that Harry had faced gods with the visages of dragons; their mortal kin were like a kitten to a sphinx in comparison. Though that wasn't quite accurate, a Sphinx was roughly on the same level as an ordinary dragon, and would give a fraction of the fight of one of those destructive gods.

Harry harvested the dragon, storing every part of it in an expanded and cooled box, and _popped_ back inside.

Harry sat at his desk, inside, and pulled out a second computer. There was something he needed to check, before taking it at face value.

There had been a post on one of the conspiracy-themed websites that had spoken about something Harry, too, had noticed. The reason he had found it was what made the post believable, considering the quality of most of the site's content, as the question mark that served as the poster's label was meant to slyly represent his superheros persona.

Harry couldn't find it in himself to care that the tiny differences in tire-tracks could be used to identify the mindset of the driver, and he was very skeptical when the Question claimed that toothpaste contained microchips that were used to regulate the quality of dentistry in any one state, but the Question occasionally made an interesting observation. The man was strange enough, seemingly unaware of the consequences, that he was perfectly willing to post all his theories on this website. Despite the fact that a fifth of them, roughly, concerned his fellow superheroes.

One of these fifth had come up a day before the faceless hero had deleted his account and removed all traces from the website. Harry found that interesting, and decided that it confirmed what he had suspected.

It made sense for the Justice League to expand their membership. There were incredible numbers of superheroes on this planet, and they could face greater threats as a unified force than they would ever be able to alone.

Harry's first clue had been when the big-seven of the league had begun to show up in other heroes' turf, but it had been reinforced by-

 _Ting_.

Harry blinked, as another tab popped up on the computer in his lap. He tapped a few keys, and the Deep-Web browser installed on this computer popped up and followed the link; he had asked for notifications on any high-profile posts concerning Kryptonite, and the site had added him to a list. Presumably, the feature was intended to help their patrons find the right kind of job; Harry was using it to find the right kind of prey.

Harry's brow dipped, as the image accompanying the post popped up on his screen. He took a moment to process what he was seeing, and the frown turned into a scowl. That scowl turned into a fire alight in his eyes, as Harry read the details.

The poster was offering subscriptions to his website, where he would upload the video, for a fee. He had already gained the interest of a thousand web-goers, who would pay when they saw evidence that the video was online. Apparently the kryptonite phallus was not enough for them to believe that the poster could pull it off. Nor did the kryptonite-tipped tazer do enough to alleviate their scepticism.

Harry went over a dozen options in his mind before copying the link to the website and to the download of his browser. He opened his email, knowing that getting some help was the best option he had available to him. Learning the skills necessary to track them down would take too long, since they scheduled to kidnap and rape Supergirl the next night.

What he could do, however, was tag Batman with a tracing spell as he left his abode. If she was part of his mission, letting them sit in a prison spell would not be enough.

He sent the email, with a small message to go along with the content, and tapped on the other computer to refresh the screen. For some reason, a Kryptonite dildo wasn't what he was looking for. He wasn't willing to whip that out, should he get into a fight with Superman, and wasn't even willing to use the phallus to learn the energy signature of the rock.

Harry nodded to himself, seeing that they were going to make their move that very night, and vanished from the chair with a _pop_.

One of the restrained fighters gave a shout of fright as Harry appeared in the cave with a loud _pop_ , mirroring the sound made as he left, and another yelled something angrily. Harry did not know their language; his magic would interpret it quickly enough, and the information would be stored in his mind, but he didn't need to wait for that.

They wouldn't tell him the information, even if he asked them in every possible combination of niceness and nastiness.

He stepped to the RPG-wielder, whose name he would never know, and saw a flicker of fear in the man's visage as the whites of Harry's eyes glowed blue.

As Harry dove into his mind, the man's every fear came rushing to the surface. The screams that followed were of terror, not pain, as Harry pushed further into the psyche.

-)(-

 **Subject: Thugs intending to rape Supergirl**

 _Bruce Wayne,_

 _Yes, I know your dual-identity. My name is Harry Potter. I fought Superman on his parents' (Martha and Thomas Kent) farm. I was held in your cave, bound by magical chains. You keep the Robin Suit of your second sidekick in a glass case. Batgirl recovered miraculously, and you may have discerned (by now) that I was responsible._

 _Presumably you have taken steps to prevent this being intercepted, and even if you have not then I assume you will still track down the person who is planning to sexually assault Superman's cousin. I am not able to do so myself, as I lack the necessary knowledge and ability._

 _I am sure I will see you soon. Give my regards to the family._

Batman's eyes drifted to Clark, as he tucked the handheld device back into his belt. The last line had made his frown deepen, but the content that the email held was more important than barely-concealed threats.

Bruce would have to tell his friend. While Batman would be able to stop them himself, Superman would be furious if, and when, he found out that Bruce had not asked for assistance.

The Wizard… Harry Potter, was an enigma. Bruce had come at the problem from too many different angles, but there was no way to keep track of the young man. He frequented Gotham and Metropolis, but also Europe and the Middle East. Sometimes he would be wandering the streets in the middle of the day, sometimes in rush hour, sometimes at night. Sometimes he had a clear purpose, sometimes he just seemed to be walking aimlessly. Sometimes he stopped petty crimes, sometimes he killed warlords.

There was a chance that Harry Potter was using this as a means to distract Superman and or Batman from something he was going to do. The most obvious thought, after a moment's deliberation, was that Harry might have been targeting a supervillain; there had been an increase in their activities lately, after the League had gone temporarily quiet, and some of them might have stepped on his toes.

Bruce would ask Dick to keep an eye on things in Gotham, and on the Wizard, then. He would be able to tail the wizard without alerting him, hopefully. Assuming that Harry Potter went on his own patrol tomorrow, that is. He often seemed to, but there was no discernable pattern to when he chose to venture into Gotham. If this Harry Potter went after one of Clark's villains, there would no doubt be news coverage of it immediately and Wally could arrive on the scene in minutes or less.

As though it was reading his thoughts, Bruce's computer _buzzed_ behind him.

'What is it?' Clark asked, staring at Batman. Of course he had noticed there was something off with his friend. By her concerned frown, Diana had, too.

'An alert. One of the military satellites monitoring the Kh'Walana group has picked up spikes of energy coming from what has been identified as their base of operation.'

'Spikes of energy?' Diana asked, as she stood beside Bruce with one hand on the back of his chair.

'Magic.'


	9. Ex-Robins Give Chase

Harry breathed easily, as he leant against the wall of this… place. Compound. The terrorists, and he was no longer hesitant to label them such, were preparing a grand attack to get their point across. That the public place they were going to attack, using several suicide bombers, was frequented by their own religion almost as much as their perceived enemy did not seem to matter to Kh'Walana.

Religious nutjobs were nutjobs first and religious second.

However, everything told him that there were a few hours until they set off. From the details in the minds of the now-dead terrorists he had captured, to the location of their people.

They were all armed, and their forces made up a small army. Harry would have trouble getting inside without alerting them. Clouds of dust would be disturbed should he take to the air, even invisible, and on the ground someone might come barrelling into him.

Which would be an issue, if he intended to go inside.

Harry was only this close to check he had not missed anything. Their minds blurred together when he was far away, and the disturbing contents of most of them would, feasibly, overshadow any innocent persons inside.

He hadn't been mistaken, and crouched down at the corner of the outermost wall. Harry laid his left hand on the ground, and the Ouroborus glowed a soft blue as he imprinted a spell on the wall.

Harry closed his eyes, and his magic spread over his own skin with the feeling of cool water washing him. When he opened his eyes, his body was transparent; turning the corner, Harry walked swiftly past the guard standing immediately before him.

He placed a hand on the side of the man's head, and then his other on his shoulder. The man's light faded, but he was anchored to stand upright. Of course, he would not respond were someone to approach, but he would pass a cursory glance.

Harry reached the second of the four points he needed, and knelt next to it. The snake biting its own tail shone blue, and Harry moved on.

He left three more standing dead men, by the time he left the terrorists to their fate.

The compound collapsed, and the explosives contained within blew them to hell.

-)(-

'Will you shut up?!' Dick Grayson, Nightwing, exclaimed.

'That depends,' Dick heard the grin in Jason's voice as he spoke, 'do you wanna make me?'

'Usually I'd kick your ass to teach you a lesson, but we're already running late. Who knows if he's gone by now?!'

'Who gives a shit if he's gone? He ain't doing any harm.'

'Trust you to say that,' Dick scoffed.

'Trust you to think "the nasty man's killing people, he has to be stopped!" Never mind that they're fuckin' pedos and murderers he's killing! Because you see the world as cotton candy and kittens and kittens made of cotton candy! Boy Wonder; a bigger boyscout than Superman,' Jason returned. This was an argument they had had before.

'Knowing that there are scumbags, and deciding to _kill_ all those scumbags are very different things, Hood.'

'Not all. Just some.'

'Why do you get to decide which of them die?'

'Easily. The fuckers who make me sick to my stomach get a bullet.'

Dick didn't say anything, just scowling behind the mask he wore. There was no way that Jason could have seen it, but he chuckled to himself when Dick didn't reiterate his argument that it wasn't their place to take lives or even to judge who deserved to be punished, that life mattered no matter who it belonged to, and that they were hardly any better than the criminals they fought if they descended to that level.

'Oh, right… life's sacred, isn't it?'

'I'm not particularly religious. But if there _isn't_ an afterlife, doesn't that make life even more important to preserve? If they don't go to Heaven or Hell, you're just _ending_ them.'

'And they deserve to be _ended_. Some of them deserve to be tortured before, but all the people I kill deserve death.'

'How can you know that?' Dick asked, still frowning deeply, 'You don't know them; some of them have families and friends who'll be devastated by their loss. You're orphaning kids when you kill.'

'And their kids will be better off without scum raising them. We've both seen it first hand; children raised by crooks grow up to be crooks. Most of the time.'

'And if their parents are in prison, how will they be influenced by that?'

'By visiting their parents in prison. By their parents' scumbag friends. By the fact that the cycle doesn't ever end, and they get left in the gutter by the shitty things their fathers and mothers did, and have to turn to crime to help support themselves and their family.' Jason didn't say it, but Dick's mind went back to the way the younger man had been living when Bruce found him. 'End the cycle, and they can actually be helped; crime's the only thing people have time to focus on, the way the world is now.'

'The way Gotham is now.'

'Not just Gotham. Gotham's in a worse state than most, but corruption and crime exist everywhere. You can't deal with it if you don't take off the kiddy gloves.'

'And kill people?'

'And show them that their crimes have _consequences_. Those who exploit street-level thugs, who you say deserve a second chance, roam the streets of Gotham and New York like they're kings. And what is there to stop them? They can buy their way out of trouble with the loose change in their pockets, and getting underlings out of prison costs even less; they don't have to fear the cops when they _own_ the cops. Superheroes put them away, and then they " _escape_ " months later, if that.

'Even Batman, whose entire _purpose_ is to inspire fear in his enemies, doesn't scare them any more. Not the big players, anyway. It's the same pattern; they kill a dozen or so people, then Batman steps in and stops them, maybe breaking a few bones in the process. They get thrown into Blackgate, or Arkham, then buy their way out, or break out, and the process begins again.'

Dick didn't speak yet. Batman put them in body-casts, or shattered their network of criminal activity, but none of his nemeses stayed locked up for long. Nightwing noticed a similar pattern forming with his own gallery of rogues, even if his were not quite so extensive or colourful as Bruce's.

'Just look at what Joker did last time he got free.'

And, with that, Jason won their argument. What could Dick say against him? That he wouldn't have killed Joker for what he did to Barbara?

The fact of the matter was, that would be a lie. If he had gotten his hands on Joker, he would have killed the clown. Just as any of them would have, with the exception of Bruce. Maybe.

Batman's discipline was incredible, it was something Dick had never seen in another, but even he had his limits. And the Joker may have finally pushed him past them. With the accumulation of the pain and suffering he had caused Bruce, personally, since their back and forth began, Batman's strength-of-will would eventually be overcome by Bruce Wayne's emotion.

That was the day on which the Joker would have won. His mission in life was… _had been_ to make Batman kill him, to force his archenemy, the law to his chaos, the good to his bad, to break his one rule. In the Clown's deluded mind, that equated to a win on his side more than killing Batman ever would.

' _He's on the move, Master Richard_ ,' Alfred's voice, with a mechanical edge, spoke into Dick's ear, ' _on Fifth Street and Morgan. He is heading south, towards your position._ '

'Time to get going,' Dick told Jason, and they set off in silence.

Bouncing from rooftop to rooftop, Dick shot more than one suspicious glance at Jason. Nightwing couldn't say based on the information Bruce had given him whether Harry Potter, the WIzard they were heading towards, was an ally or an enemy. He was assuming he was an ally, of sorts, but what did they know about him? Did he save Barbara out of the goodness of his own heart? If he had, why did he go about it the way he had, by hiding his involvement from _everyone_?

It was suspicious as Hell, and Dick didn't want either of them to go into this with the impression that Harry Potter was a friend.

Unfortunately, Jason felt a kinship to the man. They both killed, and in Jason's mind both fought for the betterment of the world, even if the Red Hood was not classed as a hero by the rest of the world; people did not trust a man who had tried to fight crime by taking control of the criminals themselves, even if he had now righted his ways. Red Hood had, once, reigned over all the drug trade in Gotham.

That kinship made Dick wince. They wouldn't… would they?

No. Jason Todd did not play well with others, no matter how much he had in common with them. Dick couldn't imagine Harry Potter did, either.

'There.' Jason said, beside Dick, as they continued through the night sky of Gotham city. He stopped suddenly, with that word, and fell into a crouch as he looked over the rooftop's lip to the street below.

Dick approached, keeping himself low, and followed Jason's gaze. He was careful to move slowly and carefully in order to avoid the target spotting them, and was glad to see that Jason had done the same. Neither was wearing their usual attire; Jason's helmet was a dark red and he had forgone his brown leather jacket, and Dick wore a fully-black suit, without the blue bird emblazoned on his chest or the extended wings of the same colour that spread over his shoulders and arms.

Their costumes were more noticeable than Batman's, but far less than when each had been dressed as Robin. When Dick had asked Batman the reason for giving them such brightly coloured costumes, Bruce had told him that "if you can avoid detection dressed in bright red and yellow, you can avoid detection in anything," which made some sense. It was best to learn the ropes while with Batman than when they no longer had a safety net.

Harry Potter was dressed in black, a leather jacket, black cargo pants, boots also made of leather, and gloves. Dick couldn't see any of the symbols tattooed on Harry Potter, given that they were covered, and also couldn't see his face. As the man stopped walking, and turned his head to apparently peer into a shop window, Dick frowned.

It was approaching midnight. The shop was shut, and the insides were dark, so why was he looking inside?

Had he spotted them?

The _pop_ reached Dick's ears milliseconds after Harry Potter vanished, and both Dick and Jason were already at full height and scanning the rooftops. Dick's eyes scanned those on the right, and Jason's those on the left. Therefore, Nightwing spotted the Wizard's retreating form first, as Harry Potter leapt between two buildings.

Dick elbowed Jason, then took off running with the younger man trailing behind.

He didn't miss a step as he vaulted the lip and the small gap between their building and the next, and kept his speed as Jason's landing footstep reached his ears; the landing step was louder than the others, of course, and Jason favoured combat boots that had steel toecaps. Dick knew that first hand, considering they had broken his fibula once upon a time.

Dick ran through the night air, favouring speed and forgoing any stealth, and leapt over the next building at a full sprint without any idea what he would do once they caught up to the magician. He'd escaped his bonds in the Batcave once before, and Dick didn't know a better way to subdue him; he'd just have to improvise, then. Between he and Jason, they should be able to drag the magician to the League, at least, and they would be able to take it from there.

Dick landed in a roll, having leapt the width of an alleyway, and came up to see, three buildings ahead of him, Harry Potter had stumbled and had caught himself by throwing his hands out in an effort to prevent his face meeting concrete.

Dick had covered another building by the time Harry potter was on his feet, and when the Wizard glanced over his shoulder with wide eyes Nightwing was nearly at the next gap. Two buildings between them.

The wizard vanished, and appeared a building further away. Dick redoubled his efforts, feet pounding the rooftops. He pushed himself into the air, and onto the next rooftop, landing full speed and hearing Jason just a few steps behind.

Dick pulled his Escrima Sticks from their sheathes on each hip, and leapt onto the second-to-last building between he and Harry Potter.

The magician wasn't running any more, like he had deduced that they would catch him, and now faced them with an expectant look on his face.

Nightwing landed, and Red Hood hit the rooftop next to him, heavy and with a pistol in his right hand. Maybe he liked the magician, but Jason was more willing to fight than most anyone Dick had ever met. And less trusting, even, than Batman.

Dick's eyes locked onto the brilliant green of Harry Potter's and he brought his right hand back, about to throw the fighting stick at the stranger.

And then the rooftop exploded.

Dick's vision went red, then black, as the concrete blasting upwards slammed into him and knocked the wind clean from his body. He didn't process the grunt of pain from Jason, or the gasps he himself made, or even the fact that the world spun and turned upside down. His mind swam and he lay limp on something as hard as concrete, with something heavy pressing on his ribs from all directions.

Dick's legs hung free, as his head lolled back unsupported. He gasped, and felt sharp pain emanate from his torso. Broken ribs; at least three of them.

Dick did not move further, as his mind went to the green eyes of Harry Potter. He had seen eyes like that before… but not quite. Green Lantern's light came from the ring on his finger, and the energy that was all around his body was not his own; this magician's eyes were alight with energy from inside himself.

And… he wasn't the same as Starfire. Her eyes were a beautiful green- he shouldn't be thinking of her like that anymore- but when they _glowed_ the light was throughout them. She had no whites to her eyes when her powers began, but Harry Potter did.

'Nice… Jacket…' Jason groaned out, from… somewhere. To Dick's left, still? Why did he sound different?

Nightwing slowly opened his eyes, having trouble focussing on anything as the world spun, he grew confused. He was suspended above the rooftop they had leapt onto, and was staring down at Harry Potter, where he stood before Jason. And Jason… was clutched in a massive, grey fist. His arms were captured between the fingers of the hand, legs dangling freely, just inside Dick's view, and his head was craned back to get a look at the magician who had captured them.

Harry Potter spoke without inflection, 'Thanks. It's new.' he had a pile of items at his feet that, one by one, jumped into his waiting hands. The magician turned them over a few times, examining them, and then let them float back to the floor. In his hands at the moment, Dick saw, was one of the handguns Jason carried.

His eyes went to the pile, and Nightwing groaned when he saw his utility belt and Escrima Sticks in the small collection of things.

'Batman sent you, presumably,' Harry Potter said, seemingly just thinking out loud.

'Tha's right…' Jason agreed, unnecessarily. It wasn't all that difficult to figure out that they'd been sent by their previous mentor, considering the correspondence between Batman and this magician only a few hours before.

'To trail me back to my home?'

'T' keep an eye on you and make sure… you weren't causing trouble.' Jason had to pause midway through to regain his breath, telling Dick that he, too, had bruised or broken ribs or, if luck was against him, even a punctured lung. Not likely, though; Red Hood was still talking.

'Because he's not able to come out on patrol?' Harry Potter asked, as he pulled back the slide on the gun and a bullet floated out. He lifted it to his eye and peered inside the firearm. Then he let the slide close, and spun the empty gun in his hand. The magician was turned away from him, so Dick could only see a fraction of his face, but he wasn't looking at either of the captured Heroes.

'No… he's working with the League on something. Whatever it was that you told him about, I think… the pretty boy over there will know better than me.'

'Nice weapon,' Harry Potter commented, 'is it custom made?'

'Good eye,' Jason sounded mildly surprised, 'I didn't peg you for someone who'd like guns…' was he fishing for information, or just interested in another crime-fighter who liked the deadly weapons? And not old-time revolvers, like Vigilante.

'They're useful. I prefer fighting with magic, but having alternatives is always a good thing.'

As his gun floated to the floor, Jason seemed to follow it's progress, like he was making sure it was safe. As a result, he did not see the red light shine on Harry Potter's palm. The light formed a bolt of energy that shot at Jason and struck him in the throat. Red Hood went limp, and Dick struggled, hoping to get free.

Harry Potter turned to face Dick, and still there wasn't any emotion clear in his eyes.

'What's Batman working on?' Harry Potter asked him, as Dick's movements stilled. Nightwing considered his options, decided he wasn't going to be able to get free and that Jason's chest was moving up and down in rhythm as he breathed shallowly and quickly thanks to the broken ribs.

'Something for Superman… involving Supergirl.' Bruce had seemed genuine when he told Dick why he could not be more specific, and Dick hadn't had much trouble deducing what it meant; he was not the _World's_ _Greatest Detective_ , but he had learned from the man. Batman would be worried about the information getting to Barbara for what had happened to her so recently, of course, but for it to be something he wouldn't trust Dick with on the _off_ _chance_ that he would let it slip showed that it was something that would specifically hurt her fragile mental state.

Richard Grayson wasn't in the habit of telling secrets, but he was currently travelling with someone who was. Particularly to Barbara. Jason had had a serious crush on her when Batman inducted him as Robin, she'd only been a year older and was too attractive to not capture a teenage boy's attention, and cared more about her now than he was willing to show. Dick saw it, and that meant Batman did, too; if Jason found out that someone was plotting against Supergirl he'd be perfectly willing to tell Barbara about it. He'd know what would happen, and would be perfectly happy to give her the needed push.

Barbara had thrown a rapist out of a window last week. She'd demanded that they let her get back into the swing of things before she went insane, and on the second night she had shown that she was _far_ from recovered. And it hadn't been a low window, either; the office manager would have died from the seven-story drop had Batman not caught him. If she found out someone was trying to hurt… to _rape_ her best friend, now, Barbara would actually take a life.

Dick didn't think that she could survive that. Maybe he was just being protective of the girl he thought of as a little sister, but…

'Good. He shouldn't have trouble tracking someone over the internet, should he?'

'No… he won't have any trouble with that… Why do you care?' Dick asked, his voice quiet as he tried not to breathe too much.

The magician crime-fighter didn't answer his question, 'Feel free to try again some time,' he said. There was a hint of amusement in his tone, now, and as Dick opened his mouth to ask what was funny the red light shone again and his world went dark.

When they woke up, the two were in perfect health but incredibly confused.

-)(-

Nightwing was what Harry had expected from Batman's first protege. Intelligent and perfectly able to fight crime, slightly distrusting but not, from what Harry could gather, to the extent of his adoptive father.

It wasn't difficult to deduce that Richard Grayson and Robin-turned-Nightwing were one and the same, once Harry knew that Bruce Wayne was Batman. Nor was it especially tricky to deduce who filled Richard's shoes once he'd left his colourful costume behind.

Jason Todd. Red Hood was more interesting than Nightwing, in Harry's eyes; Jason Todd had died abroad, shortly after Joker was spotted in Ukraine, and his body was flown back to the States. The second Robin had vanished, and was only recently replaced.

Red Hood had shown up only a few months after the event. Harry didn't know how he had come back from the dead, but the mean-streak of the second Robin was amplified quite a bit; maybe that was because he had been murdered, maybe it was due to his method of return, Harry didn't know. He had fought Batman for a time, and waged war on Black Mask to take down the drug kingpin and a significant portion of the crime in Gotham city.

He had done more, in the time before Batman stopped him, than the Dark Knight. Because his methods were of the permanent variety, people had become afraid and crime had dropped. Marginally, but it had dropped and the drug dealers Red Hood commanded had shaped up their behaviour somewhat; pregnant women, and children, were no longer dealt drugs. If he had been allowed to continue, Harry was willing to bet that Jason Todd's plan had been more extensive and that the young man himself was more ambitious than just tackling narcotics.

It was tricky to say for sure, though, since Red Hood had never stayed in one city for long. He wasn't accepted by the people who lived there, because he had a habit of delving deep into the criminal world in order to stop it.

The two hadn't been attacking Harry, and hadn't stood a chance, really. If they had known his abilities, and had time to plan, maybe things would have been different, but he had sensed them easily enough on an empty street. They'd been on the rooftops, and that had screamed suspicious.

Had he not been heading home with his loot, Harry might have tried to think of a way to kill two birds with one stone. Maybe he could have shown them to criminal hideout and gotten to see their abilities from a first person perspective. Or he could have used them to get the attention of a bigger fish.

But Harry didn't feel like carrying a chunk of Kryptonite around with him. It was unlikely that he would run into Supergirl tonight, but it was near-certain that he would meet her someday soon. As her lover recovered, the Kryptonian would want to find the stranger who had ripped her prize, the Joker, out from under her.

Harry would be able to survive the encounter without the rock no matter how angry she was, and he heard that it was torturous to Kryptonians to be around its radiation.

Harry placed the chunk of green rock on a newly-conjured workbench, next to a shard of glass, a shard of metal, a bullet, and a small diamond. He held his left hand over it, and closed his eyes as he cast a spell.

Harry turned around, and walked over to his desk. He took a seat, and let the spell get to work. If the energy could seep into any of the materials, he would know in the morning. Until then, he had other things on his mind.

Perhaps he should have asked the two about the expansion of the Justice League, but at the time it had seemed unwise to divulge his knowledge to that extent. Not that he really knew anything… just that the heroes were moving about much more than they usually seemed to.

Other than that, it was all guesswork on Harry's part.

The League's space station, for example, was plenty big enough to house a few hundred heroes, so it was safe to say that they would be staying in the same base of operations. There were benefits to being in space, in that it allowed them to intercept any threats before they reached the planet's surface, that the League seemed to think outweighed the negative of being in space and therefore unable to survive should the satellite be destroyed.

There were certain heroes that had worked closely with League members in the past. Green Lantern and Green Arrow; Batman and all his allies; the entire League and Metamorpho. They, presumably, would be inducted along with the Question, who seemed to be included in their extended roster. Harry assumed that the high profile heroes would also be offered the chance, to help people remain comfortable with the League's strength. Captain Atom was key amongst that list, along with such heroes as the Plastic Man.

And the power of some heroes couldn't be ignored. Doctor Fate's magic was strong, without doubt, and the League would benefit from having it there. The hero called Orion was strong, also, even if his strength was the physical rather than the mystical. They would be useful when it came to fighting world-ending threats, which made it important for the League to try to recruit them in Harry's mind.

Harry wondered if they had considered asking him to join. They'd seen him stand toe-to-toe with Superman, so his power wasn't in doubt, but it would likely depend on their main motive with the Justice League. If they wanted to promote peace and goodness above all, rather than amass the best possible force to defend the planet, having him killing villains would not work for them.

Either way, Harry expected them to extend an olive branch to him soon. They were paying attention, that had been shown by Nightwing and Red Hood trailing him, but it _was_ possible that they would view him as a villain rather than a hero. Fighting Superman had proven his ability in a fight, but it had also demonstrated that… well, that he was willing to fight Superman. And to hurt Superman's loved ones in the process.

Harry couldn't figure out the League's stance on violence, though. Two were wholly unwilling to kill, Superman and Batman, and Harry was willing to bet that the Flash was equally pacifistic, but at least two of the _current_ members seemed to have moral codes that were… open to interpretation. Half the time Wonder Woman carried a sword and was willing to use it, and Jon Stewart was a soldier before a hero. He didn't seem to go out of his way to kill, but didn't appear to have a problem with it, either.

Harry shook his head. This was uncharted territory, and it made everything less clear. He had never before been left without any clue as to what he was supposed to do, and he had made a few mistakes as a result.

Chasing vague hints was no way to conduct whatever they wanted from him. Whatever _she_ wanted from him. It was… strange.


End file.
